


departure

by carolinaa



Series: I will take it / It can't go wrong. [3]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Courtroom Drama, Disordered Eating, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Found Family, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Past Child Abuse, Support Networks, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:07:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 33,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24493978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carolinaa/pseuds/carolinaa
Summary: Gabriel Agreste stands trial, and Adrien tries to cope.(When is he supposed to mention that his dad's Hawkmoth? Now, or later?)
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Alya Césaire, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Chloé Bourgeois, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Kagami Tsurugi, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Nino Lahiffe
Series: I will take it / It can't go wrong. [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1464991
Comments: 102
Kudos: 621





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> yooooooooooo i'm back!! quarantine got me back on my bullshit
> 
> standard tw for stuff that i tagged in the last works (i just didn't want to tag it all bc it's not something that's actively being worked through, but is just described/mentioned): eating disorders, suicidal ideation, child abuse, panic attacks. keep yourselves safe rn, i know things are bad. i love you

Adrien sits in court, Nino and his lawyer sandwiching him. And his father, behind the defense’s desk, hasn’t looked at him once.

It’s day two of the grand spectacle. It’s the rich-person drama of the century, so there’s media still crowded into the spectator balconies, and one photographer is sat near Adrien so he has to remember to keep schooling his expression and to stop messing up his hair. He’s more than a little antsy. Yesterday is pretty much a blur to him now, as he’s pretty sure his mind had left his body for most of it, but today brings none of that same luxury to him.

His suit is tailored to fit and a gift from Chloé. Adrien had found that he’d gained too much weight to fit into any of his old formal suits, which had left him spiralling on the ground of his closet, but Chloé had picked him up and dusted him off and dragged him to his favorite suit warehouse to try something new. 

_(“You’re a growing boy, Adrikins, come on. Don’t be sad that you have handsome manly shoulders now--”)_

The suit is too hot. He feels sweat on the back of his neck, running down his spine, and it’s disgusting. Adrien’s normally very good at ignoring discomfort in favor of looking pretty for the camera, but he’s too overwhelmed right now to deal with that. Nino, while having none of the same hangups, keeps pretending that he’s too warm too, fanning himself periodically, just for solidarity. 

Adrien, every day, thinks more and more often that he might be in love with Nino.

(That’s not relevant right now.)

The defense’s tactic is one that his lawyer, Therese, had anticipated. His father’s lawyer (Adrien cannot remember her name for the life of him) is painting Adrien as unstable, reckless, a garbage pail junkie. This is an unfortunate way to explain away Adrien’s various bruises--if Adrien is out doing stupid teenager things, who _knows_ how he’s getting injured--but Therese is prepared. 

She has test results from over the years, showing no traces of drugs--several of the companies Adrien’s worked with are sticklers about making sure their models are like that, especially when their models are underage. Nino testified yesterday, saying that he’s never seen him do _any_ drug, how the hell would Adrien even know where to get those (Adrien won’t comment on this). She has security-camera footage of Adrien getting the shit kicked out of him. It’s probably-- _hopefully_ \--enough, but. Gabriel’s gotten out of scrapes before.

He’s already testified, and so has Adrien. So now it’s Adrien’s job to sit and look like a pathetic victim and focus on not losing his lunch on the courtroom floor. 

Adrien, also, has a moth-shaped brooch burning a hole in his pocket--and he doesn’t know when to bring that up. 

_il y a 3 heures: Why So Few Child Abuse Cases Are Publicized--and why the Agreste case is an outlier_

**@adrienslorealcommercial Tweeted** : name someone who can sit in court prettier than this i’ll wait _#agrestetrial_ (4 photo attachments) 

(View 29 replies)

**@briella_devil Replied to @adrienslorealcommercial:** god can you stans fucking quit it for a second. this isn’t fodder for your aesthetic twitter accts you freaks

**@adrienslorealcommercial Replied to @briella_devil:** he can buy my silence if he cares sm lmfaooo

A few days before the trial started, Alya had gone with Adrien to help him pick out a new cell phone. Up until today, he’s largely avoided using it, because he knows most of his notifications are going to be either Twitter mentions, news alerts about himself, or faux-concerned texts from distant family members. Adrien’s only regretting his social media blackout a little bit as he scrolls through more than two thousand messages he’s missed in the class group chat.

It’s hard to be mad at them for talking too much. A lot of the messages are just from today and yesterday, as his classmates live-tweeted the court proceedings to each other, and Adrien is curled up on the couch that evening and trying not to cry at some of the more supportive messages. They should’ve been focusing in class, but instead they were making dumb memes about hating his dad. He loves them all.

Adrien’s been assured that he probably won’t have to get up on the stand again, and he’ll just get to watch everyone else involved talk about him and Gabriel for another couple days, and then it’ll be over. But right now, he’s so emotionally drained that the simple praise from his classmates is sending him over the edge. 

“Adrien,” Alya says from the other end of the couch. Adrien looks up at her, and she has her phone out, filming him. “Whatcha reading?”

“Nothing,” Adrien says, and wipes at his eyes stubbornly. 

Marinette and Nino take turns glancing over from the game they’re playing on Marinette’s Xbox, both smiling supportively at him. “Is that the class chat?” Marinette asks.

“No,” Adrien insists. He looks back at his screen, and gets to the message where Rose had edited about eighty heart emojis onto a picture of Adrien up on the stand and @’d him and declared him “brave” or whatever the fuck--and Adrien feels tears start spilling down his face.

Alya says, “Aw, what’s up?”

“They’re just--sweet,” Adrien says vaguely, and sniffs. “Don’t send this to them.”

Alya cackles, and lowers her phone as she finishes filming. “It’s _cute_. We all love you, bud.”

Adrien dissolves further with that. He thinks Marinette and Nino must finally pause their game at that, because soon he’s being manhandled into a cuddle puddle with all three of his friends--Alya and Nino squashing him and Marinette at his side, arms wrapped tight around his torso. 

“You did so well today,” one of them says. 

“Thanks,” Adrien says, and holds on as tight as he can with his free hand to somebody’s soft sweatshirt. “I’m--sorry I dragged all of you into this.”

“Shut up. We _want_ to be involved,” Marinette says, and swats his arm. 

“Yeah, I wouldn’t’ve fucking _bawled_ in court for just anyone, dude.” Nino’s testimony had been sweet and full of tears, and Adrien and Nino had hugged for approximately half an hour afterwards. “You’re our friend.”

Adrien could sit here forever. He wants to, in fact. But after a few more minutes, his brain reminds him that they’re probably getting uncomfortable with this, and that he should cut it off sooner rather than later so that they’ll want to do this again someday. 

“Anyway,” he says, sniffling, “what’re you guys playing?”

Nino and Marinette break off of the pile, and Alya scoots away from him as soon as the hug’s over. “Oh, it’s one of my dad’s old fighting games,” Marinette says, scooping her controller back up. “I guess it was popular in like the eighties.”

Adrien feels cold, now. But it was his idea to stop cuddling. He reminds himself it’s better this way.

(Colette Lefeuvre has been modelling professionally for two years. Her career took off after booking a show with Agreste. So, she’s not surprised when she’s called by a news station for a quick interview about the court case going on, but that doesn’t mean she’s any less furious about it.

“I know you’ve worked with Adrien in the past,” her publicist says, running to stay in her line of sight as Colette stalks towards the green room. Anouk is a stern middle-aged Dutch woman who Colette’s agent found for her. Anouk’s main basis for a lot of her condescension is that Colette is only twenty years old. “But remember how I said you need to be reserved in this interview. The case is too fresh, and we don’t have all the information.”

“I know,” Colette insists. But she can’t shake the memory of her last brief encounter with Adrien at a shoot, the way he’d jumped like she’d been about to murder him when her hand brushed the back of his neck. She can’t pretend like she doesn’t remember Adrien’s face pale and pinched when he’d had to swap a suit jacket for one of a bigger size. “I get it.”

“If Gabriel’s charges are cleared, and you came out against him today, you’re never going to work in Paris again.”

“I _get it,_ ” Colette says again. “Thanks.”

Colette walks up on the stage and takes her spot. The anchor has only asked one question when Colette loses her patience and says, fervent, “Of course I trust Adrien. He’s a sweet kid and he deserves better than media vultures using this horrible time in his life for more clicks. It feels like a betrayal to all of us who didn’t know that we were employed by such a monster whenever we worked for Gabriel.”

Past the bright lights shining in her eyes, and the feeling of sweat gathering on her hairline, Colette sees Anouk, offstage, put her face in her hands. Colette can’t make herself care.)

After Nino and Alya have to go home, Adrien tries to be polite for as long as he can before he needs some alone time. It’s an hour and a half later when he feels as if he can excuse himself to lock the guest room door and be on his own.

Sabine and Tom are always trying to make sure that he’s comfortable and speaking up about what he needs, but there has to be a limit to that. So unless they explicitly don’t want him around, he knows he’s obligated to chat and help them make dinner and clean up around the house. If he’s not well-behaved enough, they’ll get tired of having him around. He likes it here, and he doesn’t want to go stay with Felix and Aunt Amelie, so he does his best.

Once he gets the feeling that they’re done having him in their sight, Adrien says goodnight, and excuses himself, and shoves a towel under the guest room door to muffle noise, both in and out.

After taking some deep breaths, he puts on the brooch his dad gave him. 

(Adrien is still trying so hard not to directly admit that his _dad_ must have been using it. Gabriel was--)

A little purple kwami flies out. Its eyes fall first on Plagg, and it brightens and swoops towards him, as if forgetting Adrien’s even there. “Plagg! Oh, it’s been so long!”

“Nooroo,” Plagg greets. He’s putting on a big show of reluctance, poorly hiding how ecstatic he is. He allows Nooroo to hug him.

“I _missed_ you!” Nooroo says, spinning Plagg around. 

Adrien wants to hear more, or to maybe ask how long Nooroo has been alone in Gabriel’s possession--but then Nooroo seems to remember himself. He releases Plagg, and sees Adrien wearing the brooch. He goes rigid, afraid. 

“Are you my new Master?” Nooroo asks, avoiding Adrien’s eyes, and Adrien wants to fucking puke.

“Oh,” Adrien waves his hands wildly, exchanging a horrified look with Plagg. “ _No_. Fuck, is that what he made you call him?”

Nooroo glances to Plagg, back to Adrien. He looks apprehensive, like Gabriel could show up at any moment and catch him. Adrien knows the feeling. “Well--yes. Where is he?”

“About to go to jail,” Plagg crows, sounding none too torn up about it. 

“For being Hawkmoth?” Nooroo asks, eyes wide.

Plagg snorts, covering for Adrien (who couldn’t answer that if he wanted to). “No, for being a shitty dad.”

Nooroo doesn’t disagree, and looks at Adrien with a slightly different expression from before. This one is less afraid of Adrien, at least. “This is great news, then! Are you going to take me to Master Fu?”

Adrien clicks his teeth together, forcing his jaw shut. He doesn’t want that. He doesn’t want Master Fu to have a reason to take Plagg away.

Nooroo takes the opportunity to read different meaning into this, though. He sinks a bit, asks more cautiously, “Are you going to try and get the Ladybug Miraculous?” 

Adrien can’t lie and say he hasn’t thought about it. It would be easy, with two Miraculouses. Ladybug trusts him. Adrien could bring his mom back, and then give the Miraculous right back to Ladybug, and maybe it would turn out fine. Maybe Adrien could do it without committing even a _small_ act of magical terrorism, just to flex on his dad. It would take fifteen minutes, tops.

Coming out of his thoughts, Adrien looks to Plagg and finds his kwami looking horrified. Nooroo isn’t relaxed, either, at Adrien’s hesitance. Adrien needs to snap himself out of this thought process, because Plagg shouldn’t be scared of him and Nooroo needs to stop looking at him like he’s Gabriel.

“No,” Adrien says.

Nooroo and Plagg both sag in relief. Nooroo says, in an almost amused way, “I guess he wasn’t wrong about you being Chat Noir, then.”

“He knew--?” Adrien asks, blood draining from his face.

“Just briefly!” Nooroo tries to assure him, and flits around anxiously, seeing Adrien’s fear. 

“That’s--”

“Sit down,” Plagg says to Adrien sharply, because Adrien is literally about to pass out.

Adrien sinks onto the bed, his head in his hands, trying to breathe. At any time, his dad could have come into his room and killed him and taken the Miraculous, and Adrien had been way too cavalier about wearing the ring in front of him. “Nooroo, I’m so-- _sorry_ he had you for so long.”

“It’s alright,” Nooroo says. The confused note in his voice is most likely because Adrien’s physical reaction to his guilt and panic aren’t something that Gabriel probably did very often. 

“Kid,” Plagg says, and settles on Adrien’s shoulder. “It’s going to be fine. Could you breathe?”

“Give me a second,” Adrien mumbles, and stares at the floor. 

“Your father has the peacock Miraculous, too,” Nooroo says.

“Time and place,” Plagg snarls at Nooroo, but Adrien has already heard, and is well on his way to hyperventilating.

“His day was already ruined,” Nooroo says, defensive.

The photo of Adrien knelt over his father--city newly repaired, fire trucks and police cars in a wide semi-circle around them, Gabriel holding Adrien’s arm in a vice grip, Adrien’s eye still swollen and purple--is the photo that’s shown more than anything else. Adrien running out to where Gabriel is lying in the street, reeling from the akumatization--that footage is played too, over and over. 

There’s footage of the Gorilla trying to haul Adrien away, and Adrien is frantic, is trying to follow as his dad is shoved into a police car--Adrien is falling to the ground because his legs don’t work anymore, curled up on the street.

(Alya had asked, _is it okay if I let a news outlet use the video I took?_ and Adrien had said _yes_ without thinking.)

Adrien gets sick of seeing it, but he keeps watching it. He watches analyses of it, internalizes newscasters’ remarks like _why would Adrien be so concerned about his alleged abuser in this situation?_ and _what did Gabriel say to him, and what did he hand to him there at the end?_ and _do you think Adrien got that black eye from--?_

It’s Marinette who catches him, happening upon him in the darkened living room at two in the morning.

“Why could you possibly be awake?” she mumbles. She’s soft and sleepy and drowning in her oversized sweatshirt.

Adrien says, “I’m sorry. You should go back to bed.”

This just wakes her up more, and she rubs sleep out of her eyes to look at him more clearly. “What are you watching?” she asks warily, because his phone is still playing a YouTube video.

Adrien clicks his phone off. “Uh. Nino’s channel.”

“You’re lying.” Marinette frowns, yawns, rubs her eyes. 

Adrien snorts. “Yeah.”

She crosses the room and perches next to him, and sinks into the couch cushions so it feels less like she’s trying to interrogate him. “Wanna talk about it?”

“Um. Not really,” Adrien says. He leans sideways and rests his head on her shoulder, and she doesn’t shove him away. “Why’re you up?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” she says. She doesn’t sound even halfway convincing, but Adrien’s just lied to her too so he doesn’t want to push. 

As they sit there in silence for a long time, all he can think about is that he misses going out on patrol. He wonders if Ladybug’s gone out recently--Adrien’s been tempted to slip out of the house but he’s on constant police watch because of something regarding the treatment of child abuse cases. He doesn’t know if it’s smart for him to be out on rooftops right now, anyway. He just knows he wants to slip out of the house and find Ladybug and _talk_ about what’s going on with someone who doesn’t think he’s a spoiled idiot who can’t take care of himself.

There’s no reason for Adrien to ever patrol again, though. Adrien has Hawkmoth’s miraculous in his backpack and he has no fucking clue what to do with it.

Adrien should tell Ladybug what’s going on. But he can never convince himself to.

(He doesn’t want to lose her.)

“I’m gonna head back to bed,” Marinette eventually says. She almost startles him, because she’s been sitting so still for so long. “You should get some sleep too.”

“Okay, I’ll try,” Adrien promises. “You too.”

“You got it.” When she sits up, he misses her warmth next to him. Adrien’s gotten more positive physical touch in the past week than in the last four years of his life, but he has a weird feeling that he’s never going to be satisfied, in that respect.

She goes up to her room. Adrien waits fifteen minutes, then transforms and jumps out the guest room window.

Their patrol routes aren’t always the same, but they’ve fallen into enough routine over the past few years that it’s not hard to find Ladybug. When he alights on a rooftop next to her, though, her slumped posture is anything but familiar.

“Are you okay, my lady?” Adrien asks, hesitant, and she turns her head. 

Ladybug’s eyes, alarmingly, look like they’re filling with tears. “I’m so--overwhelmed,” she finally says, her voice choked. It must be bad, if she doesn’t feel any need for preamble before she reveals what she’s feeling. “I don’t know how to deal with it. There are no akumas happening, so I can’t even _punch_ something. And I have _a lot_ going on in--civilian life.”

“What’s going on?” Adrien asks. He sits next to her, his feet dangling off the side of the roof. “You don’t have to tell me much, nothing...incriminating.”

She thinks about this, but her need to talk about the issue must win out. “I have, um, a friend. They’re going through something really bad right now. But me and all my friends are trying to help them out so much, I don’t know who to talk to. Because _everyone’s_ freaking out about it, including me.”

“You can always talk to me,” Adrien says. He takes her hand. He has no idea what else to do for her. 

Ladybug almost smiles at that. It’s a relief. “Thanks. But if I told you, you’d know exactly who I was talking about.”

“So?” Adrien asks. 

She rolls her eyes, and then goes back to staring out at the city. It’s an old point of contention, and she doesn’t dignify it with her annoyance.

The two of them are quiet for upwards of fifteen minutes before Ladybug unfreezes herself and asks, “How about you, kitty? You look like you’re having a hard time too.”

Adrien shrugs. “Not much to report.”

He knows he _needs_ to tell Ladybug about Hawkmoth. About having the Miraculous. Maybe she could tell the police and Adrien wouldn’t have to be the one to break the news but--

Adrien feels selfish, but the sooner he tells Ladybug it’s over, the sooner he’ll have to give up his Miraculous and then he’ll never see Ladybug again. Or _Plagg_ again. He can’t imagine a life in which he has no father, no job, _and_ no Ladybug, all at the same time.

“Are you sure?” she asks.

“Bacs are in the spring,” Adrien offers up.

Ladybug groans, loud and theatrical, and lets herself fall backwards onto the roof, staring up at the sky. “God _damn_ it,” she says with feeling. She doesn’t even chastise Adrien for giving specific clues into his identity and age. “Why did you remind me of that.”

Adrien laughs. “You asked _._ ”

“Shut up! Ugh, I need to start making a study schedule.”

“Gross, you keep a _study schedule_?” This is rich, coming from Adrien--considering Natalie does everything but shock him with a cattle prod to keep him on a strict timetable. “It’s too early to worry about that right now. Don’t put too much on your plate, Ladybug.”

“Could say the same to you,” she says. She turns her head to look at him. From this angle, the bags under her eyes look even deeper than before. 

Adrien already feels better, just being around her and not having all the weird baggage of an ongoing court case hanging over his head. They lie on the roof in the night air and he hears Ladybug’s breaths start to even out, like she’s drifting off to sleep.

She speaks up, a long time later, long after it sounds like she’d dozed off. “Have you been following the Agreste trial at all?”

“Mmm, no,” Adrien says, with impressive blankness, if he does say so himself. “Sounds depressing to me.”

“I know you’re not a big fan of Adrien,” Ladybug says, her voice sounding wobbly, “but the trial is part of what I’m upset about. I...met him a couple times and I had no idea things were that bad for him for so long.”

“You believe him?” Adrien asks. He manages by sheer luck to keep relief out of his voice.

“Chaton,” she snaps, misconstruing his tone. “ _Yes._ Do you not?”

“I didn’t say that,” Adrien says. 

“It always seems like you’re so jealous of him. Is that what makes you hate him?”

“Not much to be jealous _of_ ,” Adrien mutters. 

Ladybug huffs, not even out of playful frustration--it’s just annoyance. She pushes herself up into a sitting position, wincing against what must be a stiff back. “God. I don’t know why I put up with you sometimes.”

Panic leaps in his chest--she’s _actually_ annoyed. It’s not a joke. He rushes to sit up and say, “I’m just _saying_ it sounds like--it sounds like, uh, his life is pretty empty sometimes. He’d probably be over the moon to hear that you’re worried about him.”

This seems to placate Ladybug from storming off, at least. She sags a little, and he attempts not to audibly sigh in relief. “Yeah.”

If Adrien wasn’t in costume, he’d let himself gush over Ladybug’s kindness or maybe be reduced to a sobbing pile of garbage on the ground. But he’s Chat Noir right now, who hates Adrien’s guts. He’s Chat Noir, who exists to help Ladybug and that’s it. He needs to make her feel better.

“It’s nice to worry about him,” Adrien says slowly, “but he has a couple friends at least who can take care of that, right? You don’t need to lose sleep over him.”

“I think his friends are having a hard time too, though,” Ladybug says.

Adrien’s brain skips into overdrive, trying to figure out how Ladybug could _possibly possibly_ know that well enough to state it. Had Alya posted something on her blog? Had Nino made some kind of comment on YouTube about how exhausting Adrien is? Had Marinette found it in her to mention it to Ladybug (because apparently the two of them hang out on the regular)? Maybe it’d been Chloé. Or one of Marinette’s parents, or--

Ladybug continues, “Something like this is probably devastating to people who are closest to Adrien. You know? And things got kind of dark today, I saw on the news. And it might get worse.”

Nobody said anything in particular. That’s a relief.

“I’m sure he wouldn’t feel good, knowing so many people are upset about him,” Adrien says, choosing his words slowly, “right? That’s a lot of...energy wasted.”

“ _Chat._ ” Ladybug’s voice is irritated again. “It’s not a _waste._ He’s a person.”

“I don’t mean wasted,” Adrien backtracks, even though he definitely meant wasted. He’s struggling to find a way to express himself in a way that she’ll accept. He doesn’t want Ladybug to spend all her time worrying about him, because right now he’s keeping her from sleeping just because he’s too cowardly to give her the Hawkmoth Miraculous. He’s the worst person in the world and he’s only making her life harder, in _and_ out of costume. “I mean--”

Sirens erupt from a few streets over, travelling from the fire station towards some unseen blaze.

“I’m going to go check that out,” Ladybug says abruptly, and gets to her feet. “See you tomorrow night.”

“My lady,” Adrien tries; useless, because she’s already gone.

**marta (@chikachika11) tweeted:** can you all fucking chill. just bc youre thirsty for adrien agreste dosnt mean you should assume hes telling the truth . #agrestetrial (74 retweets, 3k likes)

Nino comes over for breakfast that morning. He and Alya and Marinette are all missing various degrees of school, but Nino the most of all. Despite Adrien’s various efforts to assure Nino that everything’s fine and that Nino should keep up with his schoolwork, Nino refuses to admit that Adrien’s causing him hardship and keeps showing up anyway.

“Hey, good morning!” Nino greets him with a hug and his same bright smile, as if Adrien isn’t running him ragged with all the emotional support Adrien needs. “I brought tea from that place we went to all the time last year.”

“Thanks,” Adrien says, and tries again to memorize the feeling of Nino’s hug so he can remember it when he’s panicking later. “I’ll pay you back.”

“I won’t say no to that, but you don’t have to. Is Marinette up?”

“She’s downstairs.” Marinette had been downtrodden and abnormally pessimistic when Adrien saw her. She’s going to the first half of school, and joining them at court after the lunch break, so he won’t have a chance to check on her before then. Alya probably has it covered, but Adrien still wishes he had a chance to at least ask how Marinette’s doing. “Today’s gonna be boring, I’m warning you.”

“Then I’ll be there to keep it entertaining,” Nino replies easily, refusing to let Adrien talk him out of it. “Come on, have you eaten yet?”

“No,” Adrien admits, and is comforted despite himself when Nino keeps a hold of his hand to lead him to the kitchen. He takes this opportunity to try to assess if Nino’s feeling okay, but he doesn’t have much success. Nino’s even better than Chloé at locking down what he’s really feeling, as it turns out.

Tom welcomes their help, putting Adrien to work cutting up mushrooms while Nino cracks eggs into a bowl. Adrien has been passed up as omelette boy because Adrien has proved in the past that he will sooner fry himself in a pan than succeed at making anything involving heat.

To further prove his ineptitude, he’s doing a very bad job of cutting mushrooms. So much so that Tom swoops by and says, “Hey, you need to take the stems off first.”

The criticism comes with a large, gentle hand on Adrien’s back. Adrien’s been here long enough that he doesn’t flinch at the touch, and instead moves to follow the advice with steady hands.

“Atta boy,” Tom says, and pats his shoulder, and Adrien’s attempts at chopping go better after that.

They’re sent out to set a few places at the table after that, Tom pushing them out of the kitchen with a pitcher of orange juice, and Nino takes the opportunity to elbow Adrien in the ribs. “You’re getting better at that,” he says.

“At what? Not killing myself when I try to cut vegetables?”

Nino winces at the flippant use of _killing myself_ , but Adrien doesn’t have time to apologize. Nino sets the orange juice down and says, “No, at not dropping whatever you’re holding when Tom sneaks up on you.”

“Oh.” Nino has a point. “Thanks?”

“I’m proud of you,” Nino says simply, and moves on. “Maybe we _can_ teach your little rich boy wrists how to cook someday.”

Adrien holds up said wrists and flops his hands around, a pantomime of uselessness, and Nino laughs at him.

Today, on the third day of court, the lawyers get _really_ into talking about Adrien’s eating disorder. His dad’s lawyer is trying to paint Adrien like a liar who keeps harping on his first stay for sympathy, while Therese is trying to refute that. With all the discussion, a lot of repressed memories are bubbling up. Adrien leans sideways into Nino, zones the fuck out, and tries not to hear when Dr. Dupont shows up to talk about how messed up he is.

_(Adrien remembers being twelve and waking up in a hospital room, alone. It was a stark contrast to where he’d been five seconds before (running in the backyard after_ _Chloé_ _, who’d stolen his iPod Nano and was threatening to destroy it by throwing it into the pool because he kept trying to get her to listen to his shitty music) and he panicked even further when he couldn’t talk._

_There was something in his throat. When nurses flooded into his room a minute later as his heart monitor started beeping furiously, he found out it was a breathing tube._

_“You’re going to be okay,” one nurse kept assuring him, while something was pinched into his left arm and patches were rearranged on his chest and someone else re-tucked a blanket around his cold legs. He clutched her hand and blinked tears out of his eyes because he was scared and he had no idea who any of these people were but at least she was looking at him while she talked._

_“Is Dad here?” another nurse asked, because she thought Adrien couldn’t hear, and another nurse answered, “No. He answered a call and he said to just keep him updated.”_

_Adrien reached up desperately to try and yank at the tube in his throat to just make it a little easier to breathe, but someone pulled his hand away and another hand put something into the IV bag above his head and then he was asleep again._

_Adrien’s throat was scraped up from the breathing tube, and he didn’t talk very much for the first couple weeks after it was finally removed. Even after he wasn’t technically on bedrest, he wasn’t allowed to leave his room, because someone from his dad’s PR team had told the nurses that nobody can know that Adrien was there, so he spent a lot of time curled up on his side, trying not to think about the calories that his feeding tube was sending into his body._

_The nurses tried their best, clearly not accustomed to a child like Adrien having no familial company at all. One of them gave him a coloring book, and a couple of them sat and talked to him sometimes. Honor_ _é_ _was Adrien’s favorite because she didn’t ignore him when he started crying, and she didn’t even tell him to stop like Gabriel did sometimes--she didn’t seem to know that Adrien was famous at all._

_She was the one that got put on duty when Adrien was eased back onto solid foods a few weeks later, and she didn’t shout at him when he just glared at the applesauce they’ve put in front of him and didn’t even pick up the spoon._

_“Yeah, I’m not an applesauce fan either,” she said, and tapped the table next to Adrien’s dull, plain fingernails. “If I sneak you out of here for a few minutes, will you at least try a few bites?”_

_Adrien looked at her suspiciously. “If anyone sees me I’ll get in trouble,” he said, voice grating to both of their ears._

_“No one will see you.” She checked her watch. “It’s three in the morning.”_

_“Someone will see me,” Adrien insisted. He knew she noticed that his right hand wrapped around his left wrist, trying to gauge how much weight he’d gained back._

_“I promise no one will.” Honor_ _é_ _put a finger to her lips. “And no one has to find out, either.”_

_Adrien was pretty sure that she was going to report it to his doctor, who was going to put it in Adrien’s file. But on the other hand, the blank white walls around him were starting to get closer and closer around him every day. And hardly anybody from the public would be wandering around this early in the morning._

_“Two bites,” Honor_ _é_ _said, and pointed. Adrien complied, and Honor_ _é_ _helped him into a wheelchair and wheeled him into the hallway, and he almost felt like smiling when she made a big show of zooming him past the other nurse on duty too fast to be caught._

_“I hear you didn’t want to talk to your counsellor earlier,” Adrien’s doctor said one evening, looming over where Adrien is supposed to be eating dinner. She kept saying to call her Jeanne, but that was kind of weird because she was a doctor and not one of the nurses like Honor_ _é_ _, so Adrien called her Dr. Langlois and she hummed at him disapprovingly every time._

_Adrien stabbed at the small bowl of vegetable soup in front of him. He hated green beans but the stupid soup was full of them because he was anemic or whatever._

_“Any particular reason?” she asked._

_“I want to go to group sessions,” Adrien said. It had been almost a month and a half since he was admitted, and he hadn’t seen anyone his age in that length of time. Every time he’d asked to see Chloé_ _, an adult had told him no way and shut the door on their way out._

_“You need permission from your guardian to do that,” Dr. Langlois said. “Your father mentioned that you have a hard time in groups sometimes, and we don’t want you to stress yourself out too much.”_

_Adrien stared at his soup. “I don’t have a hard time in groups.”_

_“Adrien, we’ll consider group sessions in a couple weeks, but right now we just want to focus on one-on-one counselling, so we need you to cooperate with the counsellors we send.”_

_“Okay,” he said. He put his spoon down. “Can my dad visit, maybe?”_

_Dr. Langlois wouldn’t look at him directly whenever he asked her that. He disliked that about her, but maybe she just had other patients she liked more than Adrien and he couldn’t blame her for worrying about them instead. “I’ll ask him. Let me check your charts and then I’ll leave you to rest.”_

_He didn’t want her to leave. Even Dr. Langlois’s company was better than sitting in the room by himself, trying to figure out a way to dump his soup down the sink without setting off any sensors that would tell the nurses he’d gotten out of bed._

_Adrien’s release day from the hospital was anticlimactic. After a borderline emotional goodbye from his squad of nurses that had taken care of him for a few months (they’d even helped him celebrate his thirteenth birthday during his stay), Adrien was walked out to a car in the parking lot by Nathalie, and the two of them rode home in heavy silence._

_About halfway home, he asked, hesitant, “Is he mad at me?”_

_Nathalie didn’t look up from her clipboard. “No.”_

_“So, why didn’t he visit?” Adrien pressed. Nobody had ever hurt him in front of the Gorilla, so maybe he was feeling a little daring._

_“He has a company to run,” Nathalie said shortly, and that was the end of that. Adrien leaned his temple into the cold window glass and took the hint to remain silent._

_He wondered if the nurses would actually miss him, or if they’d just been doing their job for a sad kid. Adrien had done a lot of moping, and he’d cried whenever they tried to make him eat carbs, and he’d accidentally knocked nail polish onto Honor_ _é_ _’s shoe a couple of days before he’d left and he was pretty sure that was all she would remember of him.)_

Adrien, in the courtroom in the present, blinks himself back to awareness just in time to hear that Therese is calling Honoré to the stand.

Adrien’s hands go to cover his mouth, and he sees out of the corner of his eye, a camera follows the motion, probably wondering what’s made Adrien crack his placid facade for the first time.

Her hair is pulled back in a bun, and her face is round and kind, and she’s wearing a very sensible cardigan. That’s why Adrien doesn’t immediately recognize her--because she’d been wearing scrubs every time he’d seen her before. 

“State your name for the record,” the judge says.

“Honoré Llanas,” Honoré says, calm and clear.

“What is your relationship to the victim?” Therese asks.

“I was one of the nurses assigned to take care of Adrien during his extended hospital stay about five and a half years ago,” Honoré says. She glances briefly to Adrien, and probably sees that he looks like a rug has been pulled out from under him--but like, in a good way--and then she focuses back on Therese. “He stayed for a little over three months.”

“Do you remember why he was hospitalized?” Therese asks.

Again, Honoré glances at Adrien, but only briefly. “He was hospitalized for complications stemming from anorexia nervosa.”

“And how old was he?” 

“Twelve. He turned thirteen while he was with us.”

There’s muttering throughout the crowd. It’s not _brand-new_ information--it’s been mentioned both by Therese and briefly touched on by Adrien himself--but it’s probably kind of telling, that Adrien’s so un-resilient that he can’t get over something that was an issue when he was a _kid_. 

A camera focusing on Adrien flashes, and he remembers to unclench his jaw and sit up straight again. 

“How involved was my client’s father during his hospital stay?” 

Honoré takes a deep breath. She looks almost apologetic that she has to embarrass Adrien like this in front of an international audience. Adrien breathes out, and relaxes his hands, and silently urges her to fucking do it.

“I never saw his father visit once, and none of the other nurses did either,” Honoré says. “We called a few times, but he never seemed interested in coming.”

“Did you understand there to be a reason for that?” Therese asks.

“He seemed busy with work,” Honoré says, with narrowed eyes.

“Was he otherwise involved in his son’s recovery?” 

“His doctor would know the full story, but I don’t think so. Adrien wasn’t allowed to go to group counselling, and he couldn’t have any visitors.”

Therese turns, and looks at the defense’s bench with a disbelieving stare, and then turns back to Honoré. Her pause speaks volumes. “There were no visitors for three months, for a twelve-year-old who was recovering from a life-threatening illness?”

It sounds fucked up, now that Therese puts it that way. Adrien scratches his arm uncomfortably.

“None,” Honoré says flatly. “Gabriel didn’t even come to his birthday party.”

Therese pauses again, letting the jury think about that (Adrien has tuned out the jury for the most part, but he hears occasional rustling of papers as some of them seem to take notes). 

“Moving on,” Therese says, and looks back down at her clipboard of questions.

_MTN: Why it Matters That a Registered Nurse Testified Today_ _(+ 10 other takeaways from today’s proceedings)_

He half-runs to Honoré as people file out of the courtroom, and she greets him with a short, professional, but still comforting hug. 

“Thank you,” Adrien says, getting choked up as she holds him at arm’s length to examine his face carefully. “I didn’t--how did they even get you to testify?”

“I called your lawyer and asked to,” Honoré says, rubbing a thumb over the top of his hand, “as soon as I heard you were taking him to court. I’m so proud of you.”

“Thank you,” he says again. He wants to tell her about how he’s doing _better_ , and he usually eats two or more meals a day, and he still paints his nails sometimes when he’s not making court appearances, but it doesn’t seem like the right place or time for that. 

“I always knew something was up,” Honoré says. She shakes her head, and glances over Adrien’s shoulder towards where the judge is packing up her things. “I even told your doctor to talk to ASE, but I don’t think she ever did.”

“I think she and my dad were friends,” Adrien says. He tries not to sound nonchalant about it, but Honoré still shakes her head again, disgusted at that premise.

“I have to get back to work,” she says, and squeezes his hands one more time. “Let’s chat sometime, alright? Your lawyer has my number. We can go get coffee.”

“Okay,” Adrien says. 

She hugs him again. “You were one of my favorite kids to visit, you know? I would do this again for you in a heartbeat.”

“Thanks,” Adrien says, now trying not to cry again. 

“I’m rooting for you,” she tells him, and then she drapes her coat over her arm and takes her leave.

**#BOYCOTTAGRESTEFASHION (@adricnagrcstc) tweeted** : #agrestetrial WE ARE HONORE LLANAS STANS FIRST AND HUMAN BEINGS SECOND (12k retweets, 23k likes)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm back! i can't promise a consistent updating schedule but i'll be doing my best. i love you all, and please remember to take time for yourselves even as you get involved with everything that's happening in the world.
> 
> tw for this chapter: descriptions of non-consensual drug use, referenced attempted sexual assault, detailed description of a panic attack/dissociative episode (its purposefully kind of vague which one it is so i’m warning for both). please god take care of yourself gamers

**[GROUP: if one of us dies during the bac we all pass so wh...]**

**Alix** : retweet this if adrien didnt name you as one of his friends in his testimony even tho you were the one who sent so much g*briel hate mail to his leaked email address that you got a letter in the mail from his lawyer

 **Juleka** : rt :/

 **Adrien** : Was that really you???????

 **Alix** : what are you a cop? fuck off

 **Alix:** oh SHIT i didnt realize it was you adrien yes it was lmaoooo HOW ARE YOU MY HERO

Adrien doesn’t know that Chloé’s testifying until she’s being called up to the stand. 

Chloé’s not on Therese’s list of witnesses, because Adrien hadn’t wanted to fuck up Chloé’s career too badly if Adrien lost the case. If Chloé betrayed Gabriel, she’d never work in the industry again. Adrien’s already seen a couple of models he’s worked with speaking out in support of him, and while he appreciates that deeply, he doesn’t want to drag anyone else down with him--especially not anyone who’s dealing with her own sorta-messed-up home situation right now. 

But Ms. Boyer calls Chloé up. And Chloé settles on the stand in a smart business-casual slate-grey pantsuit, looking carefully aloof. Adrien is the only person who can tell that she’s terrified out of her mind. 

Adrien doesn’t want to know what she’s so nervous about--there’s nothing he can do. He tries to mentally check out, but Ms. Bayer’s already asked her first question so he’s sucked into the drama.

“I’d like to talk a little about the events of the night of the eighteenth of July last year. Do you remember what specific occurence I’m talking about?”

Chloé nods tightly. She’s not running her mouth, for once. Adrien wishes she would, so just one singular thing could be normal right now. 

Adrien doesn’t remember what event Ms. Bayer he’s talking about, but he has the feeling he’s repressed something awful. The date had vaguely come up, maybe during someone else’s testimony, but Adrien hadn’t wanted to be in the room during his father’s testimony (he’d been busy sitting in the hallway with his head between his knees trying not to puke onto the old old floor, with Alya reading off parts of her blog to him so he could focus on anything anything else), so it appears he’s missed something important. Something that implicates him for being an out-of-control teenage dipshit. 

“Do you agree with the course of events as described by Gabriel Agreste yesterday?”

“Can you review?” Chloé asks. She doesn’t _seem_ to be asking just to piss Ms. Bayer off, but Adrien wouldn’t put it past her.

As it is, Ms. Bayer lets out a kind of annoyed breath and nods. Maybe she’d hoped to just get through Chloé’s testimony efficiently, and Chloé isn’t playing along. “Yes. The evening of the eighteenth of July was the time my client described as when he realized Adrien’s drug problem was out of control.”

God, Adrien _has_ missed a lot. 

“Mr. Agreste said that you accompanied Adrien to a party of one Yvette Daviot, and it was you who escorted Adrien home afterwards. Adrien was high, and stumbling, and couldn’t stand up straight. You left him at home and took a taxi back to your house.”

Adrien had been prepared for this story to be made up wholecloth. But now, it hits him like a freight train that he knows exactly what Ms. Bayer is talking about. He wishes he’d left. He wishes he’d faked sick this morning and refused to show up. 

He curls his nails into his palms and presses as hard as he can.

Chloé says, “I remember now.”

“Gabriel’s summation of the events is accurate?”

Adrien wonders if Chloé’s being threatened into testifying by Nathalie, or something. It would explain why Chloé looks _scared (?!)_ when she takes a steadying breath and says, “No.”

Though he’s not sure of the proper procedure, Adrien wants to find a way to send a note up to her to tell her to cut this shit out. She doesn’t need to drag herself into this awful awful story, she doesn’t need to stand up for Adrien’s honor like this.

“Which parts do you disagree with?”

Now that Chloé’s rebelled just a little bit, she’s starting to relax, to lose some stage fright. “I’m surprised Gabriel acted like he knew so much about it, because he made me leave without even listening to me. I tried to tell him what was going on, but he wouldn’t _listen._ He wouldn’t even take Adrien to a hospital.”

“Were you intoxicated?”  
“Tipsy,” Chloé dismisses, waving her hand. “I had like, one glass of wine before I had to get Adrien out of that party.”

“I’m returning to the previous question. What exactly do you disagree with about my client’s retelling of the events?”

Chloé says, “Gabriel was just acting like he knew what was going on--like, he is _so_ obsessed with this idea of Adrien being addicted to drugs, but Adrien _hates_ being on drugs. They make him really stupid, and he hates that. So I tried to tell Gabriel that something was wrong, and Gabriel just called me a taxi and sent Adrien to bed.”

“So you _don’t_ disagree with my client’s retelling of events?” Ms. Bayer says, frustrated.

“Objection,” Therese says. “Leading the witness.”

“Objection sustained,” the judge says. There’s a look on her face like she’s already sensed where this story is going. “Ms. Bourgeois, why was Adrien high that night?” 

Adrien’s nails have broken skin.

Chloé shoots Adrien a glance, having the grace to at least look apologetic before saying, “Someone snuck something into his drink. I yanked him away from her and got him home, and I thought maybe his dad would _care_.”

_(It’d been a party that both Adrien and Chloé had just been excited to have been invited to. It’d been at some up-and-coming designer’s house, and Adrien had been so fucking stupid that he hadn’t even noticed his wine was weirdly salty until he was unable to keep himself on his feet--he had been so fucking lucky that Chloé had been there to drag him out of that bedroom and down some stairs before something really bad had happened--not that he’ll ever know how far things went because his only facts from the evening came from a freaked-out Chloé several hours after the fact._

_He woke up the next morning lightheaded and confused, his head killing him. There’d been fifteen missed FaceTime requests from Chloé on his phone, and as he scrolled through his notifications, trying to figure out what had happened the previous day, she’d called again._

_The video opened up to reveal a distraught Chloé with eyeliner all over her face and her hair messed up beyond repair. She hadn’t slept a second the previous night, and while she’d long since run out of tears, she’d still sounded like she was crying when Adrien answered the call._

_“Chloé?” he asked, disoriented. He squinted against the light coming in from his window. The small section at the bottom of his phone, showing his own visage, revealed that he looked just as awful as Chloé did. “What is it?”_

_“I’m sorry,” Chloé said, and the scariest part was that it sounded like she meant it. “Are you okay?”_

_“I think I’m hungover,” Adrien mumbled. He frowned, trying to remember--he doesn’t remember having more than one drink. “Did something happen?”_

_“I tried to tell your dad--” Chloé hiccuped, and then pulled her comforter up higher to obscure most of her face as another sob interrupted her sentence. “I tried to tell him what happened but he wouldn’t_ listen _and he made me leave! He wouldn’t believe me and I just--I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”_

_“I’m fine,” Adrien said, but he had the distinct feeling that he actually wasn’t. “What happened?”_

_He could never pin down whether his father didn’t believe Chloé, or whether Gabriel just didn’t want it to be true, or whether Gabriel’s concern only manifests as icy disdain for Adrien’s wellbeing. Either way, Adrien had to do a photoshoot with Yvette three weeks later even though she was the one who almost…_

_Chloé and Adrien don’t go to parties anymore.)_

“--and so I think it’s _stupid_ that everyone here is just pretending like Adrien has some sort of ‘drug problem,’ like he’s not the most well-behaved kid _all the time._ He never has _fun,_ especially not after that party--”

Adrien feels blood seeping across his palms. There’s nowhere he can run right now. He just has to listen to Chloé shout at his father’s lawyer about one of the worst nights of his life--he just has to listen to the jury mumble and shoot him furtive glances--he just has to sit here and pretend like Nino, next to him, isn’t starting to freak the hell out about this revelation.

The recess has been announced for ten seconds when Nino waves over Alya and Marinette and the three drag Adrien from the courtroom, forming a tight pack around him as he holds his hands tightly together so he won’t bleed onto the floor. The four of them end up in one of the back hallways of the courthouse, and Adrien drops to the ground and most of them follow.

“Lemme see your hands,” Nino says. He pries Adrien’s hands away from his chest, and Adrien stares blankly as Marinette rushes off down the hallway.

Adrien’s brain is moving slowly, like he’s encased in jelly and swimming slowly to the surface. When he looks up at Nino, Nino’s face is surprisingly distraught.

“What?” Adrien asks. His mouth feels odd, his tongue too big. Maybe he’s not the one talking? It would make more sense that someone else is the one who says, “Nino, what’s wrong?”

Alya taps at a knee in the corner of Adrien’s vision--is that Adrien’s own knee? It doesn’t move right when Adrien asks it to--and she says, “Bud. What are five things you see?”

“I don’t--” Adrien tries to swallow, but his throat is slow to respond (is it even _his?_ ). He can’t feel the sting in his palms anymore, all he feels is crackling static where his limbs should be. 

“Five things,” Alya says, in a firmer voice, and her face seems to take up all his vision when he finally tears his eyes away from Nino. “Just five things you see.”

“Nino,” Adrien starts, slowly, “and you, and the--the drinking fountain, the big window, the--Marinette’s here.”

Clacking footsteps on linoleum have alerted him to the fact that Marinette has reappeared at the end of the hall, hands clutched around what looks like a wad of paper towels. 

“Good,” Alya says. Her voice is coming from deep underwater, but when he refocuses on her face, it comes into sharper focus, almost breaking the surface. “Four things you can touch.”

Marinette slides a little on the tile--she wears so many pairs of non-grip shoes, for someone who’s so clumsy--but ends up knelt next to Adrien, passing half the paper towels over to Nino. Adrien blinks at this, and then looks back to Alya’s encouraging face. 

“Um.” Adrien thinks about it, tries to think if he can feel anything. Panic begins rising in his chest. “I can’t--”

“You can.” Nino has taken to carefully soaking blood up with a paper towel, cleaning--Adrien’s hand? A jolt of pain echoes from somewhere at the end of Adrien’s arm, and Adrien flexes his fingers and finds that the hand in Nino’s grip does the same. 

“I,” Adrien flexes his fingers again, watches the hand in Nino’s grip mirror him, “I can’t--”

“Skip that one,” Marinette says under her breath.

“Three things you can hear,” Alya tells him.

“I hear people in the courtroom,” Adrien says. He cocks his head to the side, trying to soak up more sound. “I hear cameras. And I hear shoes clicking on the floor.”

“That’s really good,” Nino says. He finishes cleaning up the bloodied palm, and when Adrien looks over, Marinette is finishing with the other one. The deep crescent-shaped marks in both hands remind Adrien of--

Oh. Those are _his_ hands they’re holding.

He takes a sudden deep breath. It’s sharp, desperate, he’s been underwater for a minute, and Adrien is flung back into his body like a basketball slammed against the ground. His back is pressed to a wall in part of the courthouse he hasn’t seen before, and his friends are gathered around him and they look scared. Adrien’s probably just done something really really embarrassing, but his mind is too wobbly for him to pin down what it’d been.

Marinette and Alya’s shoulders both slump in the same relieved way when Adrien’s breathing evens out, and Nino comfortingly squeezes his wrist. “Hey, dude,” Nino tells him, soft. “You back with us?”

Adrien nods. He blinks, takes another uneven breath. “Sorry, I--I totally spaced out. I didn’t, um. I really am sorry--”  
“You don’t need to apologize,” Alya tells him. “Chloé must have really surprised you, right?”

“I forgot that that happened,” is all the explanation Adrien can give. While Marinette and Nino don’t seem to take this as enough explanation, Alya’s mouth flattens into a line of understanding.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Alya tells him, a light hand on his ankle. “You didn’t deserve that.”

Adrien has the urge to either cry or to ask Alya how she knew to say that. He doesn’t get a choice, because he hears a camera click to his right. He’s always had a good sense for picking up that noise.

Adrien’s head whips to the side, and he finds a middle-aged guy with a camera near the end of the hallway. His camera flashes again, the man’s face stoic like he’s photographing a mountain and not the aftermath of Adrien’s humiliating panic spiral.

Marinette has surged back to her feet, hands balled in fists. “Fuck off!” she snarls. 

Alya gets up after Marinette, stepping forward to fend the guy off. “You can’t be back here,” Alya snaps, and points to the exit. “Get out.”

“You should be _ashamed_ of yourself,” Marinette spits.

“Listen to her,” says another sharp voice. It’s Chloé, appearing behind the photographer, 

The man, wisely, turns on his heel and retreats. Chloé’s shoulders drop as soon as he’s out of sight, and Alya and Nino and Marinette slump in relief too.

“I had it covered,” Marinette says, halfway to argumentative.

Chloé waves her hand, not making eye contact. Her heart isn’t in it. “I’m sure you did, Mari,” she says, and marches past Marinette to make a beeline for Adrien. Nino scoots to sit against the wall next to Adrien, and Chloé flops herself down on the opposite side, linking an arm through Adrien’s and resting her heavy head on his shoulder. “God, that sucked.”

“Mmm,” is all Adrien can manage.

“Sorry I had to tell the world about that,” Chloé says. Her voice is dull, like all her energy has been sucked out of her body. “Nathalie was being such a bitch about me sticking to the story, but I couldn’t do that.”

Adrien should be used to the feeling of his secrets being spread out to the general public. This one, however, hurts just a little more than usual, like a barb is embedded in his chest. 

“It’s okay, I understand,” he chokes out. It still feels weird to move his mouth. “It’s a good thing you did, because I wouldn’t have been able to.”

“That’s--” Alya starts, but then clamps her mouth shut and aborts that train of thought. Adrien will have to thank her, later, for not starting that discussion with Adrien even though she’s clearly dying to. “--Okay. Hmm. Mari and I are going to get her parents. Any of you wanna come, or should we bring them back here?”

Adrien shrugs, and Chloé echoes him.

“I’ll come,” Nino says, and stands up. Adrien misses his warm presence as soon as Nino moves. “Adrien, I’ll grab you some water, alright? Chloé?”

“I’m good,” Chloé says. “Thanks, Lahiffe.”

That’s a lie, because Chloé gets so very thirsty when she’s nervous, but Adrien doesn’t say anything. He watches Nino trail after Alya and Marinette, and wishes he’d asked Nino to stay with him.

Chloé takes exactly three deep breaths before she says with sudden realization, “Nathalie’s going to come looking for me.”

“The recess will be over soon, so she can’t do much right now.”

The tone Chloé uses next is one of fake-exasperation covering up genuine-worry. “We’re finished for today, babe.”

“Oh.” Adrien feels disoriented. He’d been pretty out of it when the judge had said what was going on, so he’d just assumed it would be a ten-minute break. He tilts his head to rest it on top of Chloé’s, though he knows he should get up soon before someone sees them. “Sorry, that was stupid.”

“Well, you’re pretty so I’ll let it slide.” Chloé pats his arm. 

He doesn’t laugh at this, even though he feels like maybe he’s supposed to. “You said Nathalie told you to stick to the story?” Adrien prods, going back to an offhand comment that he’s finally processed.

“Yep. She got all up in my face about it.” Chloé has taken to examining her cuticles. “I couldn’t do it, though. She might be mad at me but you’re my best boyfriend.”

“We’re not dating,” Adrien reminds her, and she just burrows further into his side instead of admitting he’s right. 

Nathalie must have miscalculated; for all of Chloé’s corvid-esque materialism, she’d latched onto Adrien emotionally at age five and hasn’t let go since. It makes Adrien think that maybe Nathalie’s desperate, grasping at straws for people to betray Adrien; since Lila moved, there isn’t anyone in Adrien’s class who’s actively trying to destroy him.

“I should leave before she finds us,” Chloé finally says, reluctant. Her voice betrays no desire to move. “Or before your dumb friends come back.”

“If you really thought Marinette was dumb, you wouldn’t have a crush on her,” Adrien says. 

“Fuck you.”

He elbows Chloé, only firm enough to make sure she doesn’t ignore him. “Be nice.”

“I hate you,” Chloé sighs, and kisses his cheek. She pushes herself away from the wall, and brushes off the front of her slacks after she stands. With cagey, faux-casual posture that doesn’t fit her, she puts her hands in her pockets. “Call me later.”

“Sure,” Adrien says.

Chloé hovers just long enough for Marinette and her parents, and Nino, and Alya to appear at the end of the hallway, and then Chloé gives a distracted goodbye and darts away. Adrien hopes that Sabrina’s free, and that Chloé isn’t just running to an empty home where nobody will sit with her for a while.

Nino comes home with Adrien and Marinette that afternoon. Alya, comfortable with telling them when she’s had enough emotional damage for the day, wishes them a good night and promises to text them if she needs it. She gives Adrien a tight hug, and it’s the closest to feeling normal that Adrien’s felt that day.

“Thank you,” Adrien tells her, not wanting to let go.

“Of course, champ,” she says. Her chin rests on his shoulder, reassuring.

(“Self-care icon,” he hears Nino say to her as the two of them hug. “Ultimate legend of taking care of herself.”

“I love getting cringe encouragement from my fail boyfriend,” Alya says.

Nino’s mouth falls open, and he makes a very loud Nino-noise of indignation.

Alya snorts and kisses Nino’s cheek before waving goodbye to the rest of them and heading out to where her sister is picking her up outside of the courthouse. She seems tired in a way that isn’t physical, and Adrien remembers the knowing expression she’d had during Adrien’s freakout earlier. He wishes he knew what to do for her.)

“Are you guys okay?” Adrien asks a couple of times on the way home, nervous, glancing between Marinette and Nino. “If you guys don’t have the energy to be around me I understand.”

“Bro,” Nino says, and slings an arm around Adrien’s shoulders despite the seatbelt that hinders his action. “I always have energy for you.”

“Oh my god,” Adrien says, his face flushing. 

Marinette laughs, delighted by this development. 

**VOICI** (il y a 45 minutes): [VIDEO] **Agreste Fashion ‘business as usual,’ CFO assures shareholders**

_il y a 2 heures: “I just wonder where Nathalie Sancoeur is through all this.” An exclusive interview with a former Agreste executive._

Despite the fact that he’s tired enough for his vision to blur into doubles, triples as he slogs up the stairs, Adrien knows he still needs to be a model guest. One of Marinette’s parents is going to start on dinner, and he can’t just lie around and then show up at the dinner table like he’s entitled to that. 

Still, Marinette is nothing if not stubborn, and she manages to corral Adrien towards the living room, blocking his way when he tries to go help in the kitchen. Once Adrien’s been pushed onto the couch, Nino flops down half on top of him, keeping him thoroughly stuck.

They seem to know exactly what he’s been thinking. Adrien is too hazy to fight back. He just mumbles into Nino’s shoulder, “I should help with dinner,” and Marinette’s hand pats Adrien’s knee and says, “They’re ordering takeout, chill,” and Adrien takes this as an opportunity to conk the hell out.

He’s more exhausted than he’d thought. Despite the uncomfortable position, he’s warm, and sleep takes him immediately and drags him all the way into hazy dreams. Briefly, he encounters the feeling of being moved, and the feeling of a blanket settling over him, but both times he’s too drowsy to crack his eyes open all the way so he’s not sure who did either of those things.

When he resurfaces an unspecified amount of time later, his head is on someone’s lap and there are gentle fingers brushing through his hair. Adrien hasn’t opened his eyes yet, so he’s not sure who it is, but that means he can pretend he’s reacting in his sleep when he turns his head to press further into the touch. 

“Aw, bro,” says Nino’s voice, endeared. “Are you awake?”

Adrien is simply not in the mood to be conscious. He lets his face smooth out and he keeps breathing evenly, if only so Nino will keep petting his hair for a little while longer.

“Sleepy baby,” Marinette’s voice says, keeping a laugh tucked under her breath so she doesn’t make too much noise. Then, her voice drifts into solemn instead of amused, and Adrien tries not to twitch. “Today was rough, huh?”

Nino makes a sound of fervent agreement. His fingers catch on a tangle in Adrien’s hair, and he pauses to smooth it out. “I thought I wasn’t gonna be surprised by anything else.”

Marinette lets out a deep breath, sympathetic. “Yeah. Me too.” She and Nino sit in commiserating quiet for a bit before Marinette continues, “It feels like we never find out about this stuff until he can’t handle it anymore. You know?”

Nino hums. His fingernails brush Adrien’s scalp. Adrien does his very best not to push into the feeling like a cat. “It’s easy to forget he’s going through shit. Like, he’s always so put together until he’s not, even with me. I feel like a bad friend for not pushing when he lies about how he’s doing, but it’s hard because if I keep bothering him about it he’ll stop wanting to hang out with me.”

Adrien should bolt up and grab Nino’s face and insist _I’ll never want to stop hanging out with you--if I told you every time I was feeling shitty you’d cut me out of your life--please don’t say you’re a bad friend you’re the best one I have_. But Adrien’s in too deep, and he cannot under these circumstances reveal that he’s awake.

“I get that,” Marinette says. There’s a faint tapping noise, like she’s clicking her fingernails together as a way to fidget. “You’re not a bad friend, though. I mean--! That makes it sound like I’m saying you’re average but you’re not. Adrien really relies on you. But. I get it that you don’t know what to do because a lot of things are gonna be hard for a really long time, it feels like.” She takes a breath, and then leaps to a different conversation entirely before Nino can respond to that, verbally jumping ship as fast as she can. “Hey, speaking of things that are gonna suck for a long time, I’ve been meaning to ask if you’ve started on the research paper.”

“Oh,” Nino says, following her away from the previous subject, “absolutely not. You couldn’t pay me to do it this weekend.”

Adrien waits a few more conversational threads before blinking his eyes open slowly, theatrically. Nino’s hand leaves his hair like Adrien thought it would, and Adrien scowls because there’s no normal-person way to ask Nino to resume stroking his hair. “Hey,” he mumbles.

“Hey, bro.” Nino smiles down at him. “Sleep okay?”

“Felt good,” Adrien says. His eyes slide shut again, heavy, but he pries them back open and tilts his head until he can see Marinette. She’s leaning into the back of the couch, scrolling through her phone, but she gives him a tired smile. “How’s it going?” 

“Good.” She yawns widely. “You look so soft. I mean--” She smacks herself in the forehead. “Sorry, I meant comfy. You look so comfy you’re making me tired.”

“I need to head home soon,” Nino says apologetically, politely pulling Adrien’s attention away from Marinette’s blushing face.

“Okay,” Adrien says, trying to tamp down on his disappointment. Nino has a life outside of him and his bullshit, he reminds himself. “Yeah. Sorry I was asleep for so long.”

“No, you needed it,” Nino counters, still good-natured. He pats Adrien’s head, just this side of awkward. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

“I’ll walk you to the door,” Marinette says, and gets up off the couch. She pats Adrien’s head, too, as she passes, and Adrien finds that he doesn’t mind this new form of affection at all.

Usually, when Ladybug gets this tired, it’s towards the end of a patrol, or at the end of a long week of constant akuma attacks. It’s neither of these right now, so he’s worried. It’s late, and _he’s_ had a hard week, but it’s concerning that she looks like her life is just as awful as his right now.

She doesn’t get snippy at him when he asks how she’s doing, so it would be safe to pry just a little bit, but he hesitates a second too long. She gets to the question first.

“You look tired, kitty,” she tells him. “What’s going on in that empty head?”

“No thoughts in here,” Adrien promises, and cracks a smile. She doesn’t believe him, so he tries to figure out how to word his concerns (she won’t drop it until she knows at least a little of what he’s feeling). After a few beats, Adrien finally drums up the courage to ask, “Do you think...I mean, we haven’t had an akuma in a few weeks. The last one was m--Gabriel Agreste, right?”

Ladybug raises an eyebrow. 

“Maybe he’s done,” Adrien says. “Maybe Hawkmoth doesn’t want to do that anymore.”

Ladybug’s eyebrows furrow, and her other eye opens so she can fully scrutinize Adrien. “Kitty, we still need his Miraculous. He could attack again at any moment.”

 _He won’t,_ Adrien should say. _He can’t._

“I know,” he says. He tries very very hard to look casual, like he hasn’t started having a recurring dream of using his dad’s Miraculous to bring his mom back. Like he hasn’t been nauseous whenever he has to bite back _my dad’s Hawkmoth_ when someone asks what he’s thinking about. Like he hadn’t made himself puke after he realized he’d been thinking about asking Ladybug for her Miraculous, _please._

Adrien doesn’t like keeping secrets from his friends like this. Not without a good reason.

“Do you not want to fight Hawkmoth anymore?” Ladybug asks.

Adrien scrambles to say, “No-- _of course I do._ I just...he’s never gone this long without attacks. It seems like something’s wrong. Maybe he’s sick.”

“Are you worried about him?” Ladybug’s eyebrows shoot up, incredulous.

Adrien feels his own demeanor shutter like an old set of blinds. He can’t discuss this with her. She won’t understand--she’s too dedicated to her responsibilities as Paris’s hero. 

There’s nobody in the entire world who Adrien can talk to about this. 

He gets to his feet, suddenly feeling too chilly as a breeze whips over the rooftop. “I’m sorry I brought it up. I’m just tired, and I shouldn’t have bothered you with this. I should head home.”

“Chaton,” Ladybug says, getting to her feet as well, reaching out after him, “what’s going on with you?”

Adrien’s chest is going to burst open. 

“I trust you more than anyone,” Ladybug tells him. She takes his hands. “I’m on your team first, before anybody else. Okay? I need you to tell me what’s going on.”

He can feel himself tearing up. “What if--what if Hawkmoth is doing all this for a reason, for a really good reason? He might be a good person.”

“He’s not a good person,” Ladybug says. More and more, it feels like she’s holding onto him to keep him from bolting. “He’s been terrorizing this city for _years._ ”

“But I’m saying it might be for a good reason,” Adrien reiterates.

“Like what?” Ladybug challenges. 

“Uh. To save somebody he loves?” When this doesn’t get much of a reaction from Ladybug, he ventures, “Like, maybe someone in his family died and he needs the Miraculouses to bring them back.”

“We don’t know if that’s true.”

“What if it _is?_ ” Adrien’s shitty, shitty week is crescendoing in his brain. “What if we stop him, and the really good thing never happens and it’s our fault? We’re gonna stop him, and that family member is gonna be dead forever, and then we’ll have to give our Miraculouses back and it’ll--it won’t even be _worth_ it.”

“Is this a hypothetical?” Ladybug’s expression betrays that she has no idea what to say. Her mind is almost audibly whirring with fast-paced thoughts. “Chat, you’re panicking. Please just be honest with me.”

“I know who Hawkmoth is,” Adrien says, before he can think better of it.

Ladybug recoils, lets go of his hands. 

“You do?” she asks, cautious.

“I can’t tell you how I know,” he says, “but I know who he is and I _promise_ he isn’t a bad person.”

She narrows her eyes, and just stares at him like that.

“He’s Gabriel Agreste,” Adrien says.

A moment passes where the only noise is the wind. Then, Ladybug takes a step forward and shoves Adrien backwards and her face contorts into anger. Adrien yelps, and lands flat on his ass. He looks up to see that Ladybug’s fists are clenched at her sides.

“I can’t _fucking_ believe you,” she hisses at him. 

“Ow! What?” Adrien asks, startled.

“You’re so--UGH!” Ladybug stomps her foot. “ _Gabriel Agreste_ isn’t a bad person? I always thought you hating Adrien was bizarre but do you _legitimately_ think that he’s lying about Gabriel being a monster?”

“That’s not what I said--” Adrien starts.

“No, that’s _EXACTLY_ what you said!” Ladybug shouts. “Do you think it’s funny to joke about stuff like that? You’re so jaded from how shitty your life is that you can’t have compassion for one single other person! God! I tell you that I trust you and you take the opportunity to make a joke about my friend’s _trauma_!”

“My lady,” Adrien tries, but there’s nothing he can say. 

“Don’t call me that,” she tells him. She takes one stutter-step back, and then another, face still red with fury. “I’m leaving.”

Adrien’s ring beeps. His heart skips. He has to fix this. “I didn’t mean it like that--”

“I can’t talk about this right now,” Ladybug says. She keeps walking, and turns in the opposite direction to leave from the other side of the roof. “I’m going the fuck home.”

Adrien only makes it halfway home before his transformation runs out and he stumbles, trips, smacks his chin into cobblestone and then lies there in an alley, defeated. Slowly, Adrien drags himself up onto hands and knees, and then his breath hitches and he’s sobbing his heart out.

He would’ve turned in the Hawkmoth miraculous already if he’d known he was going to lose Ladybug either way. 

Adrien is alone. Even though Plagg is here with him, Adrien knows Plagg could disappear if Master Fu found out about Adrien slipping--Ladybug might tell Master Fu, and Plagg could be gone by the morning. Adrien sobs, and his arms give out and he falls flat on the ground again. He’s going to get all kinds of crazy diseases from lying on this random street, and he’s going to be in so much trouble if morning comes and he’s not in his room, but Adrien can’t imagine going back to Marinette’s home like nothing’s wrong. Like nothing’s broken.

“It’s getting late,” Plagg says. Maybe Plagg’s been trying to coax Adrien off the ground for a long time, and Adrien just hasn’t been able to hear him. “Hey, let’s get up and go home.”

“You--you heard her too, right?” Adrien keens. He lifts his head, though, and keeps moving until he’s sitting back on his heels. Though he shouldn’t touch his face without washing his hands, he scrubs at his eyes until he can see Plagg floating around. “She--she said she trusted me.”

“I know,” Plagg says. There’s cheese in Adrien’s coat pocket that he helps himself to while Adrien hiccups some more.

“She said she--”

“I know, kid,” Plagg says. “Come on, get up. Things’ll feel better in the morning.”

(Theo has worked the night shift for just long enough that he no longer feels like a shambling corpse when he gets home. His commute deposits him back at his apartment around four in the morning, as the earliest birds are starting to squawk. His partner, Florian, is asleep, as he should be. So is the ugly dog, Jambon, passed out on the floor and snoring.

Theo stumbles into the bathroom to brush his teeth before bed. The bathroom window is cracked open. He hears, unmistakably, the sound of someone crying in the alley.

Theo turns the faucet off, and the sound continues. On tiptoes, he can see over the windowsill, but the person must be pressed to the wall because he can’t catch sight of whoever it is that’s making the most pitiful noises he’s ever heard.

It's impossible to ignore whoever is down there. Theo is already spitting toothpaste out and heading back out the door, tripping over his shoes after he shoves them on without untying them first.

He clatters down four flights of stairs before emerging from his front door, patting his pockets for keys and finding them before the door clicks shut behind him.

The alley is empty, at first glance. Theo wraps his arms around himself because he’s only wearing a t-shirt, and creeps further, following the sound. Stopping a few meters into the alley, he calls, hesitant, “Hello?”

The crying abruptly stops. It’s too dark for Theo to pick anything out for certain, but his bad eyes manage to land on a hunched figure wearing all black. 

“I thought I heard someone...crying. Do you need me to call somebody?”

The figure doesn’t move. They seem frozen in place. 

“I’m coming closer,” Theo announces, and starts to walk again. “If you stab me for this, _you’re_ the asshole.”

The figure makes a noise that could be a laugh. Maybe that’s progress. Maybe Theo is about to get murdered. 

“Are you hurt? I could call an ambulance. Or a taxi, maybe.” Theo takes another step, and the figure comes into focus, and Theo says, “Oh. You’re Chat Noir.”

The vigilante is curled up with his arms holding his knees to his chest, and his face is visibly streaked with tears. Theo had previously assumed that he’d stopped crying, but he’s instead holding in sobs and it’s making his shoulders shake. 

“Are you okay?” It’s a stupid question, but it’s all he can think of. Theo walks closer, and Chat Noir shies away, pushing himself further into the wall to get away from him like an injured animal, and Theo freezes. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he promises, “I just want to see if you’re injured.”

“I’m not,” Chat Noir says, his voice hoarse. His voice cracks, going up about an octave, and Theo has an unfortunate realization, as he gets a better look at the vigilante’s form, face, demeanor.

“You’re a kid,” Theo says, horrified, and Chat Noir only hiccups in response.) 

The stranger who dropped Adrien off in front of the bakery is unnecessarily kind. He’s sort of cute, too, though much too old for Adrien. When he lets Adrien off the motorcycle a block away from the Dupain-Chengs’ bakery, Theo says, “Hey, you remember where my building is, right? Stop by if you need anything.”

It’d taken quite a bit of coaxing to get Adrien off the ground and onto the motorcycle, and Theo had listened with impressive patience as Adrien cried about how awful his life is. Adrien isn’t sure he’s ever going to be able to interact with Theo again, but he appreciates the massive effort enough to nod and promise to keep Theo in mind.

Adrien reaches the bakery’s back door just as cars are beginning to creep around the streets, just as the sun is peeking in between buildings and just as the light in the kitchen of the bakery turns on. He ducks out of sight to detransform, then goes to the delivery door to knock.

The door swings open, and Sabine is already talking, moving back towards the kitchen. “Could you leave the boxes on the ground, there, and I’ll sort them? I’ll sign but I have something to go grab, first, just hang on--” 

Adrien interrupts with a tiny, “Mrs. Cheng?”

Sabine turns, confused, and then her eyebrows shoot up. “Adrien?” she asks, and rushes back towards him. “Sweetheart, were you out all night? You must be freezing!”

Adrien only stares back at her, overwhelmed.

“What happened here?” she asks, and reaches out to hold the side of his face and inspect his chin. It’d been bleeding onto the front of his Chat Noir costume, but it’s scabbed over now and is merely stinging.

“I tripped.”

Sabine tuts at him. She looks him over once more, then just reaches out to take his arm. Adrien allows himself to be pulled into the bakery. Once he hits the wave of warm, sweet-smelling air, he realizes that yes, he’s very cold and hungry. He doesn’t protest as she sits him down in the back room and returns shortly with a cup of hot chocolate.

She sits across from him, on top of a crate that appears to contain bags of white sugar, and asks, “Why were you outside?”

Adrien avoids her eyes. It should be easy to tell her what’s going on. It was easy to tell the stranger some of these things, saying snippets in a slightly raised voice to be heard over the wind as they rode the motorcycle. Adrien clears his throat, and starts on his way to saying, “I’m--” but Plagg suddenly sinks his teeth into the back of his neck and Adrien flinches, almost spills his hot chocolate. 

“Woah there,” Sabine says, rushing to help steady him.

“Sorry, I shivered,” he says, and sucks spilled hot chocolate off of his hand without thinking about how gross it must look. He clears his throat again, and blinks against smarting eyes. It takes all of his willpower not to swat at Plagg irritably. “I’m--I needed some fresh air.”

“Are you going to be alright in court today?” Sabine asks. “Did you get any sleep at all?”

“No, but--” Adrien still can’t look up at her. “I’ll be okay.”

“Sweetheart,” she starts, unsure, but then a knock at the back door says that her actual delivery has arrived, and she excuses herself to go deal with that.

“Plagg, that hurt,” Adrien says under his breath, wounded. 

“Sorry,” Plagg says near his ear. “You sounded like you were about to spill the beans.”

Adrien _had been,_ and it’s annoying how well Plagg knows him, but he wishes he could’ve said something to Sabine. If anyone would be chill with knowing about Adrien’s part-time job as a vigilante, it’s Sabine Dupain-Cheng. And then Nino, after her. 

“I’m gonna be in big trouble,” Adrien says, “unless I explain what’s going on.”

“How about you try explaining shit to Ladybug, first?”

“I _tried,_ ” Adrien hisses. “It went _terribly;_ you saw!”  
The two of them have to stop whispering, then, because Sabine makes a reappearance. She sets down two enormous sacks of flour on the counter with no more effort than it would take to set down a glass dish, once again proving that she might match Tom in strength. Then, she crosses back to Adrien and presses the back of her hand to Adrien’s forehead--more of a practiced mother-instinct than any attempt to see if Adrien’s sick, Adrien thinks. 

“We’ll talk about this later,” Sabine says, sparing Adrien from doing any sort of explaining. “You should go try and rest, you still have a few hours before you need to get ready.”

Adrien nods. The warm drink in his hands is pulling him back to earth, a little bit.

“But it’s not safe for you to be out there, alone,” Sabine tells him, stern. “Especially not at night.”

“Sorry,” Adrien says.

“I hope you are,” Sabine says. The scolding isn’t accompanied by any threat, or punishment, but Adrien still isn’t going to let himself be caught doing this again. “Go to bed, honey.”

He sleeps a fitful couple of hours before waking up half an hour before his alarm. Instead of wasting time trying to sleep more, he turns to Twitter. 

The photo from the day before has been posted. Adrien sees an annoying well-lit shot of Nino’s arm around Adrien’s shoulders, Alya holding his face, Marinette crouched protectively on his other side. Adrien’s mad because it’d been taken when Adrien was trying to sob his way through the resurfaced memory of getting roofied at a party, but the picture’s also kind of sweet (if you ignore Adrien’s face scrunched up in a pathetic cry, his friends are all looking at him like they _care_ ).

Adrien doesn’t have the energy to text Therese about the issue. He just stares at the photo until his phone screen times out and then he stares at the black glass, at his own disheveled reflection, until Marinette knocks on his door frame and says, “It’s time to get ready to go.”

“Oh, okay. Sorry.” Adrien pushes himself up to a sitting position. He can’t keep eye contact with Marinette for long, but he does so for enough time to know that she looks like she’s had the worst night of her life. “Are you feeling okay?”

“I don’t know,” Marinette says, but then she visibly shakes the feeling away and gives him a false smile. “Don’t worry about me, though! I just need some coffee.”

He doesn’t believe her, but he can’t figure out how to tell her she’s lying. Throughout breakfast, she’s quiet and her face keeps drooping into something horrifically sad. Adrien can’t shake the feeling that something awful has happened to her, and she doesn’t want to tell him because of how emotionally fragile everyone thinks (knows) he is.

They’re in the mud room, tying their shoes, when Adrien gets up the courage to ask, “Are you sure you’re okay?”

Marinette starts to cry. She lets go of her shoelaces and puts her face in her hands and sobs, _“No._ I’m not.”

Adrien crawls over and hugs her immediately, even though it’s nowhere near comfortable for either of them. “What? What happened?”

Marinette grabs onto his sweater and he can feel her face in the crook of his shoulder. “I made a huge mistake and I yelled at a friend last night, for a really stupid reason, and I’m worried I made them really upset.”

“Who was it?”

“I’m n-not gonna say,” she says. She burrows further into his shoulder. It’s nice to be comforting someone else, for a change, so Adrien shifts until she can lean on him with all her body weight. “Just--when I get really tired and anxious, I get paranoid. And I was looking for a reason to lash out, but I didn’t explain myself at all and I didn’t apologize.”

Adrien wonders if that’s what Ladybug’s feeling, too. He shouldn't get his hopes up, but it makes him feel a little better to imagine that Ladybug might not have meant to direct all her anger at him.

“I can’t imagine any of your friends being mad at you,” Adrien offers. “It would be stupid of them to feel like that.”

“I don’t know if they’re _mad,_ but I’m worried I freaked them out. Nobody likes to get yelled at.”

Adrien feels her sniffle into his sweater. He can’t convince himself to be concerned about any wet spots that may result. “Maybe.” He knows _he’d_ been pretty freaked out about getting shouted at. “But I’m sure if you apologize everything will be okay.”

“Very optimistic of you.” Marinette finally releases him, and sits back. Her face is blotchy, and she rubs it with one palm. She seems to be feeling less distraught now that she’s cried, though said crying has done nothing to help her exhaustion. “Ugh. Thanks for listening. I know it’s not a great time.”

“I always have time for you,” Adrien tells her sincerely, because it had made _him_ feel better when Nino said it to him, but immediately his face burns with embarrassment at how cheesy it sounds.

Marinette’s face flushes, and her eyes dart away while she mutters something incomprehensible.

Both of them are saved from the situation by Tom appearing in the doorway and saying, “What’s going on? Are you two okay?”

Marinette and Adrien both jump, but it’s Marinette who says, still wiping tears off of her face, “Oh, it’s okay! Sorry, we’ll be ready to go soon!”

“If you’re sure,” Tom says, still clearly worried, but he turns away to grab his coat and drops the conversation without any more prodding. Marinette’s mentioned that her dad gets nervous about her crying, but will eventually circle back with a baked good and carefully chosen supportive words, so Adrien doesn’t get too defensive about Tom’s willingness to drop the subject.

“Are you sure you wanna come today?” Adrien asks Marinette, regarding her while both of them lace up their shoes.

Her face gets blotchy when she cries, but she’s already put herself almost all the way back together, hands calm and steady on her shoelaces, and he can hardly tell she’d just been crying on him two minutes ago. 

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Marinette says. Her voice carries a familiar gravity with it that makes Adrien want to believe her. “You’re my friend.”

**alix alix alix (@OGamyrosekin) Retweeted @tomasreports’s photoset:** oh to be alya césaire and to cradle adriens face so tenderly…… 

**Ladyblog Dot Horse (@alya_cesaire) Replied:** MDRRRR YOU JUST HAVE TO ASK HIM HE LOVES IT. #holdhim

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always i'm on tumblr as @officialratprince, be sure to come yell at me!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heed the added tags. the beginning part of this chapter gets deep into some of the abuse, so stay safe. i love you!

**Ladyblog Dot Horse (@alyacesaire) Tweeted:** article 9 of civil code says you published those photos unlawfully @tomasreports. do u wanna tell your boss or should i 

**Alya’s first follower :) (@nino_lahiffe) Replied:** get his ass

The main attraction in court today is the showing of the full contents of Adrien’s flash drive. There are some testimonies from a couple of Gabriel’s employees, too. Though Nathalie doesn’t make an appearance, the Gorilla shows up and speaks through a translator and Adrien ends up on the verge of tears (predictably). Apart from the Gorilla, though, none of these reveal anything new or exciting, so Adrien’s nerves remain fixated on one upcoming event: the showing of the security footage on Adrien’s flash drive.

_(“Is it okay for you to be in there when they show it?” Therese had asked him, back during their first few meetings about the proceedings. She typed rapidly on her computer while asking, always moving too fast through eight or nine different tasks during a single conversation._

_Adrien nodded absentmindedly. He figured that with everything else being revealed about him, he might as well let everything get out there. Everyone in his life knew all of his secrets, except the one important one, and he didn’t feel like it was his job to be upset about that._

_“Nicole--she’s the policy manager I mentioned, earlier--Nicole and I discussed it, and she said it’s bulletproof. But we don’t like to show things like that unless we_ have _to, right? We’ll re-evaluate halfway through the week and decide if it’s really necessary for everyone present to see it.”_

_“Okay,” Adrien said. “Yeah, I’ll be fine watching it. I’ve seen it before.”)_

Despite the fact that he’d felt pretty certain about his fine-ness before, Adrien is having second thoughts. But he’s here and everyone’s already seen him make an appearance, so he doesn’t want to back out and make it look like these things make him squeamish. He’s already seen some comments online about his conspicuous absence during Gabriel’s testimony. (He wonders who has the fucking time to notice stuff like that, simultaneous to his father lying through his teeth about very falsifiable things.)

When they return from lunch and the video draws ever nearer, Adrien reaches over on his bench, not really focusing his eyes on any one of his friends, and taps the inside of Nino’s wrist to vaguely get all of their attention. As soon as he touches Nino, he retracts his hand--his palm is sweaty, a fact he’s suddenly very aware of. 

“You have to leave when they start showing it,” he reminds them. He says it under his breath, because he feels like Gabriel’s eyes are on him again. His anxiety has been shouting at him all day to do what he used to do when under threat: cave in, bow under pressure, retreat to a docile and safe place under his father’s control. 

He’s past the point of no return, though. Gabriel after his trial isn’t someone that Adrien will want to interact with, no matter what Adrien tries to do to fix it.

_(This morning, he’d woken up from his short doze with the afterimages of a dream under his eyelids, a dream in which he’d dropped all charges and returned home and everything went back to normal. Nathalie stood in the corner of his room and watched him fall asleep and wake up. The Gorilla drove them through empty streets at creeping speeds of five kilometers per hour. His father watched him eat, and the food turned to crumbling topsoil in Adrien’s mouth.)_

_Anyway,_ he doubts that his friends would want to see the video anyway. He suspects, based on the few conversations he’s accidentally overheard between them, that he’s traumatized all of them enough already with his mental health bullshit.

“Do you _want_ us to leave for it, bud?” Alya asks. “Marinette can fight the judge.”

Marinette, still tired and bedraggled from crying her eyes out that morning, makes a fist and pounds it into the opposite palm. 

Unfortunately, they’re right to keep asking him about that. Adrien doesn’t want to be alone. The only thing that’s gotten him through this week is his friends, and he’s not thrilled to face this all by himself. That feeling almost outweighs the social ramifications of them seeing the video. 

(Maybe it’s not as bad as he remembers?) 

He wavers. His gaze darts from the judge, to Therese, to Gabriel--the latter of whom is still watching him. 

(It’s probably _worse_ than he remembers.)

“You shouldn’t see it,” Adrien decides.

“You got it,” Alya says. She gives a thumbs-up, all reassuring bravado. “We got your back, though.”

“Just--” Adrien doesn’t know how to say this. Some of the photo evidence has already been shown, in long segments of evidence review that his friends had missed in favor of attending school. “When they show some of the photos, don’t...please don’t be too upset. It happened a long time ago.”

“Your tone of voice is making me nervous,” Nino says, furrowing his eyebrows. “It’s your ‘let me just casually mention a really fucked-up thing about my home life’ tone of voice.”

“Oh, _that’s_ what it is!” Alya says with dawning recognition. “I knew I recognized it from something.”

“Guys,” Adrien says, exasperated.

The judge calls the court to order before they can bully him further.

Therese takes the court through the photos on the flash drive, which had been collected over the course of a couple years. A few bruised arms, some battered ribs, various injuries that have been largely pinned on Adrien’s alleged wild teen antics. Then come the photos taken at the police station, with Adrien woozy from his concussion, squinting because the flash on the cameras had been too bright--these ones are more credible, because Adrien had taken photos with his friends mere hours before this, which show none of these same bruises.

These photos have all been seen previously, and it’s even less fun this time around. (Even more so because Adrien’s recycled jokes about his looks are even less funny this time. He mutters, “Aw, I’m hot in that one,” and Nino’s eyes drop away from the photo of Adrien and Alya grimaces like she’s getting upset. Adrien shuts himself up after that.)

Too soon, it’s time for video evidence. Marinette and Alya and Nino have to leave, along with a bunch of other people that Adrien cares less about.

“Text me if you need us to break you out?” Marinette whispers as she squeezes past him to get to the aisle. 

Adrien nods, half a smile forcing its way onto his face. He likes the idea of her causing enough of a ruckus to jailbreak him from this experience. He decides, firmly, not to ever tell his friends that he had the option _not_ to sit through this.

Adrien’s bench is too empty, now that they’re gone. 

A few lights in the courthouse are turned off. The screen’s really only big enough for the jury, the two lawyers, and the judge to see, but Adrien doesn’t take the opportunity to ignore what’s happening.

The security footage flickers on. Fifteen-year-old Adrien slips in through the enormous front door, too-skinny and soaking wet--God, he really had been underweight. It’s all Adrien can focus on for a moment, but he forces himself to move on before he can trigger himself. Adrien is extremely adept at triggering himself for no reason.

That night had been a bad one, but not as bad as the other Bad Night, so Adrien hasn’t repressed all the details. (He’s not sure what his repression threshold is exactly, and something tells him Sabine would do anything in her power to keep him from finding that out.) That night, Adrien got caught breaking curfew because he entered through the front door after the security system was enabled. It was early in his Chat Noir days, so he wasn’t quite used to the whole ordeal--he hadn’t eaten since the previous night’s dinner and he hadn’t been able to climb through his bedroom window and had in fact puked in the bushes after failing to scale the back wall of the house. 

He’s realizing now--he got caught because his father had just finished orchestrating that akuma attack, so Gabriel had been awake and well-aware of all happenings on the grounds of his estate. At the time, Adrien had just been struck with bone-deep paranoia about his father being omniscient.

_(Adrien, swaying, had clicked the front door shut behind him as carefully as he could, but he’d only taken two steps before the door to his father’s office had swung open. Nausea rose in his stomach, and he had to physically restrain himself from bolting back out into the thunderstorm.)_

On the screen, Baby Adrien goes limp in Gabriel’s grip as Gabriel pulls him towards the open office door. This is a pre-growth spurt occasion, and Adrien remembers with detached familiarity the sensation of his father towering over him like that. Nowadays, the towering is all of the emotional variety.

_(It really should have ended with a lecture. Perhaps being grounded, for a week or two, until Adrien learned his lesson vis a vis sneaking out. But Adrien had been torn between feeling physically ill, and feeling terrified, and feeling sharp-around-the-edges from almost getting murdered by an akuma victim._

_So Adrien--stupid, fifteen years old, and angry--had mouthed off.)_

Adrien can’t watch. He also can’t bring himself to look away. His current mindset is throwing him into a different pattern of thought than he’s ever followed before. 

A-Couple-Weeks-Ago Adrien had dug his fingernails deep into Gabriel’s emotional wounds and scratched until Gabriel had snapped. It’d been ugly, and unnecessary, and fueled by Adrien’s self-destructive desire to be injured. 

Baby Adrien, on-screen, is so small that Gabriel’s hand could have snapped his wrist if he squeezed too tight. Baby Adrien, only a couple years younger but hardly recognizable, is clearly terrified of the man in front of him.

 _(Adrien hadn’t seen his father all week, had only heard disapproving words through Nathalie, and had had the office door shut in his face when Adrien came bubbling through the front hall with news of having won a writing contest at school. That night, he came home feeling worse than garbage, needing nothing more than a good night’s sleep, and his father had chosen_ that moment _to appear and pretend like he was a father.)_

Adrien, with a weird pit in his stomach, feels a surge of protectiveness towards the kid on the screen. Baby Adrien is, well, a _baby._ There’s still roundness to his face, and his hands are too big for his arms when he gestures with them, agitated, and he hasn’t done anything awful. He’s missed curfew, but that’s not something that other kids get hit for. 

(Right?)

The angle of the security camera is the opposite of what Adrien sees when he goes into his father’s office. The camera is boring into the back of Gabriel’s head, almost obscuring everything that occurs because Baby Adrien’s short enough to be concealed behind Gabriel’s height.

_(Adrien experienced many, many scary moments like this, staring up at Gabriel, staring at the giant portrait of his mother who smiled like nothing was wrong. Adrien had a recurring dream for a few years of his mother watching Adrien be beaten into the ground, smiling that portrait-perfect smile and doing absolutely nothing to stop it.)_

Despite the shitty angle, though, it’s undeniable that Gabriel backhands Baby Adrien so hard that Baby Adrien stumbles, hits the ground. A couple members of the jury make noises of alarm, which are shushed, and then the courtroom returns to icy silence.

The video continues, and it gets worse. Adrien watches with a morbid sort of fascination as the scene unfolds. It’s worse than he remembers. It’s definitely good that he made his friends leave before they could see this. 

_(Adrien had hours, days where all he wanted was someone to do something. He had long spans where he considered what his life would be like if Gabriel wasn’t in charge of him anymore. He had weeks wherein he considered pursuing a different field of study, one he actually loved and one that didn’t depend on his body, weighing if it would be worth it to incur his dad’s wrath.)_

He sees Baby Adrien’s head slam into the ground hard enough that Adrien feels the echo of the impact ricochet through his skull. Something in his chest protests, and says, _that’s wrong._ _Gabriel shouldn’t have done that._

_(“It was my fault,” Adrien said sheepishly to Nino the following day. Adrien had been excused from school, and he’d had to talk on the phone instead of FaceTiming because looking at screens didn’t agree with his concussed brain._

_“What happened?” Nino asked, all genuine care and concern._

_Adrien knew that being out past curfew was bad, and he knew that speaking out of turn was bad, but he didn’t know what exactly had necessitated such a prolonged punishment._

_He remembered to answer, and, stuttering over his words, got out, “I was out late and it was rainy.”)_

Seeing the horrified reactions of the people around him, he thinks he understands why his friends are so upset whenever Adrien turns up to school showing signs of Gabriel’s latest feats of parenting. Baby Adrien is scared, and he hasn't done anything wrong. (When Adrien had shown up at the bakery this morning, after being out _all night,_ Sabine had just given him hot chocolate and talked him into taking a short nap. If being out late had been that bad, she would’ve at least yelled at him.)

“That’s enough,” the judge says, shattering his train of thought. She shakes her head, just a little, as if to clear it of the afterimages of the video. The screen is turned off, and the court rests in still silence.

The overhead lights flick back to full brightness. Still, nobody talks.

Adrien scans over the courtroom, trying to gauge what the vibe is. Most eyes are on him, or they’re still on the darkened screen. Adrien accidentally locks eyes with Gabriel during his sweep, and the two of them stare at each other for a prolonged moment.

Gabriel raises an eyebrow, asking something like _are you happy, now?,_ and Adrien doesn’t have an answer for him. But he at least knows, _I didn’t deserve what you did to me back then._ And he knows, _I can be the person to do something for fifteen-year-old Adrien._

Something is settling heavy in his chest.

(It feels like hope?)

“Would the prosecution like to request a recess?” the judge finally says.

Therese, without asking Adrien, says, “No, your Honor.”

The judge looks at her a moment, sudden indecision on her face, and then she turns to Ms. Bayer. “Would the defense like to request a recess?”

“Your Honor, I request that in respect for Mr. Adrien Agreste, the court be adjourned early and reconvened on Monday.” Ms. Bayer’s face remains impassive, professional, cordial as she addresses the judge.

Adrien stares at her, disbelieving, but she doesn’t even look at him. He keeps staring while the judge agrees and dismisses the jury for the day, and Therese eventually leans over to explain in a low tone, “She’s made it look like she needs time to pull together a new strategy. But knowing Barbara, it’s also because she knows you need a break after this week.”

“You know her?” Adrien asks.

Therese efficiently slides her notes into her briefcase, checks around her table for anything she’s accidentally left behind. “Yes, we’ve run into each other a couple of times. She’s doing a remarkable job remaining employed.”

“What?” is all Adrien can say.

“Isn’t it obvious? She _hates_ your father,” Therese says, lowering her tone so nobody around will overhear. With that, she stands and taps the bench next to Adrien. “Take the weekend off, alright? I’ll see you Monday.”

“Okay,” Adrien says, dumbfounded, mind spinning out like a broken Beyblade. “You too.”

_(il y a 12 minutes): It’s officially been three weeks since the last akuma attack, Paris’s longest break in five years. Officials strike a balance between suspicion and optimism._

**many thoughts head full (@magnifiquecoccinelle) Tweeted:** adrien looks like. sick today #agrestetrial i hope things are going alright for him :(

**(View 63 replies)**

**juleka (@antihorsegirlHQ) Replied:** oh i’m sure he’s fine haha you know. & i’m sure he appreciates comments abt his appearance while he’s going thru it :) 

After weaving through a cloud of photographers and escaping the courtroom, Adrien finds his friends clustered in the lobby of the courthouse, occupying a group of ancient, sensible armchairs. Marinette is asleep on Alya’s shoulder, and Alya’s typing rapidly on her phone, and Nino’s slumped, staring at the ceiling and looking the most bored he’s ever been in his life.

 _They would’ve gone back to school if they didn’t want to be here,_ Adrien reminds himself, and keeps walking without faltering.

Adrien edges closer to them and offers a “Hey” to get their attention, and Nino immediately springs to his feet, eyebrows scrunched in concern.

“Hey, dude,” Nino says. His eyes dart across Adrien’s face, probably trying to guess what Adrien’s feeling. Maybe it’s hard for him to tell because Adrien’s emotions are either “dissociating” or “bawling his eyes out” these days, and right now Adrien is doing neither of those. 

“Hey,” Adrien says again, and sweeps forward to hug Nino as tight as he can. The two of them are roughly the same height, but the sheer amount of comfort that Nino radiates still lets Adrien feel as if Nino’s hug is a security blanket. “Thanks for being here for me.”

“It’s no problem,” Nino says. His arms settle around Adrien’s shoulders, squeezing tight. 

“How did it go?” Alya asks. Adrien sees her pat Marinette’s head a few times to wake the latter up. Marinette scowls, and opens one eye first, unhappy at being roused.

“It was--” Adrien clamps down on an instinctive “ _fine.”_ He needs to be more honest about what’s going on in his brain. And while he’s still unpacking whether or not his most recent altercations with his father were justified on Gabriel’s part, Adrien thinks he’s ready to trust his friends when they say what happened to him was messed up. “It was intense,” is what he finally lands on. 

Nino is so comforting to hug. Adrien really could stand here forever.

“I bet. Doing okay?” Nino asks.

Adrien, surprisingly, isn’t lying when he nods _yes._ “Yeah. Do you guys want to go get food?”

“Dude, yes!” Alya says immediately. “I’ve been starving for like an hour but Nino wouldn’t let us leave.”

Nino stiffens, like he’s mad, but his voice comes out tinted with bashfulness instead. “I didn’t want to be gone if you needed us.”

If Nino keeps saying stuff like that, Adrien really is going to fall in love with him and then their entire friend group dynamic will be fucked. Adrien says, quiet into Nino’s shoulder, “You’re my best friend.”

Nino says, a smile in his voice, “You too, bro.”

(Pauline Valade was one of Agreste’s two head tailors for eight years before the criminal charges were leveled against Gabriel. Work doesn’t stop while the case is happening, because the board doesn’t think that’s smart financially, but Pauline begins to hear whispers about higher-ups planning to jump ship. 

Pauline has both security and renown in this job. It’s why, whenever she was assigned to Gabriel’s kid for a show, she didn’t think it was her business to worry about bruises on the kid’s ribs, arms, knuckles. She took certificates of good health at face value, rationalizing away how Adrien’s weight fluctuated week to week. _Those things could mean anything,_ she told herself, and kept doing her job. _It’s not my job to say how Adrien should be disciplined._ Now, it makes her chest hurt to think about when she would chastise Adrien for being too jumpy during fittings.

She’s close to retirement. Unlike her younger coworkers, she doesn’t have a preoccupation with image, or career prospects, or avoiding being “cancelled.” 

Still, Pauline is sick to her stomach whenever the Agreste trial comes up on the news. She goes to bed early, this week, and her husband doesn’t have to ask what’s wrong.)

_il y a 5 heures: Is Gabriel Agreste’s defense holding up? We spoke to a legal expert about what his lawyer’s strategy may be, going forward._

**[GROUP: just cleaned the diocese oven call that immaculate convecti…]**

**Alya:** WHO has the calc answers (urgent)

 **Max:** me : **·** )

 **Max:** i can help u with the assignment i’m not giving u the answers

 **Alya:** if i said they were for adrien would you give them for free

 **Max:** …………...i would. but i would need video evidence

 **Alya:** you win this round maximilian

 **Mylene:** Ivan and I were headed to the library soon! We should meet up there, we can work through the assignment together! 

**Alix:** i cant stress enough that you all are freaks. go back to sleep and do homework tomorrow night like normal people

Saturday morning finds Adrien suspiciously well-rested, the result of about fourteen hours of sleep. He wakes up in a pool of sunlight and his anxiety doesn’t hit him right away, lets him stare sleepily through the window for upwards of half an hour before he coaxes himself into the shower. 

As much as he’d have liked to apologize to Ladybug last night, Friday evenings aren’t a night when they usually take time to patrol. In addition, he’d been very, very, very emotionally fragile, and he doesn’t want his apology to be any more pathetic than it has to be. He’s aware that he’s the one to blame for the majority of their argument, given his history of talking shit about himself to Ladybug, so he needs to figure out how to talk through the issue without making it worse for both of them.

Having a day off is something foreign to him. He feels off-kilter, adrift, odd as he finds breakfast for himself. Tom and Sabine are working already, and Marinette is likely still asleep, so he’s on his own--it’s one of the first times he’s been all by himself since all this mess started. 

His desolate mood doesn’t go away until he remembers his stack of missed schoolwork, but once he does, Adrien jumps at it like a starving hyena.

Nooroo and Plagg wrestle under the couch, tumbling over each other, tired of being cooped up all week. Adrien sits on the floor in between the sofa and the coffee table, a spot that feels secure to him--he’ll get up if he hears someone coming, because it would be embarrassing to be caught like this, but he likes having his back against the couch where he can see the whole room. Satisfied with his setup, he digs through a week’s worth of homework until he feels somewhat normal again.

His hair has air-dried into vague curls and Plagg and Nooroo have tired themselves out by the time Adrien hears footsteps on the stairs. He looks over to find Alya cresting the final step, wearing a hoodie of Nino’s (Adrien recognizes it because Adrien has _also_ stolen it once or twice--it’s very soft). She’s carrying herself like everything is fine, this morning. Her face isn’t tight with anxiety, and her clothes look comfortable; nothing like the business-casual wear she’s sported all this week.

Adrien can pretend, for a blissful second, that everything is completely normal.

“Morning!” Alya greets when she sees him, and weaves around the coffee table to kneel and trap Adrien in a one-armed hug. “How are you, bud?”

“Good,” he says, and means it. He’s done a remarkable job keeping his anxiety at bay this morning. “You?”

“I’m excellent!” Alya lets him go in favor of standing, edging towards the stairs that lead to Marinette’s room. “I’m just here to kidnap Marinette, didn’t mean to distract you.”

“I was about to finish up here, no worries,” Adrien says. He weighs the consequences of bringing up more emotional topics, and finds himself hesitantly saying, “I wanted to say thanks for helping me calm down on Thursday.”

“Aw.” Alya’s exuberant smile softens at the edges. “Of course.”

“And if, if you ever wanna talk about…”

“Got it,” she says, with the firm air of someone who will never want to talk about it. Adrien knows the feeling. “I appreciate it.”

“Yeah,” Adrien says, and has to look away because he suddenly feels unbearably awkward. “Okay. Sorry, I didn’t mean to keep you.”

“No need to apologize for that.” Alya waves, and keeps going up the stairs. Before she reaches Marinette’s room, she says, “I’ll see you later. Nino said he’s free for brunch tomorrow, if you wanna come with us!”

“I’d love that,” Adrien says, even though eating in public is The Worst.

“Great.” Alya smiles in her friendly way. “Okay, cool,” she says, in place of a farewell, and then disappears into Marinette’s room.

Adrien scoops his notebooks and assignments into a pile and retreats to the guest room to put them back into his backpack. Nooroo and Plagg dart after him, zipping out from under the couch and settling on his bed to watch him.

Instead of finding something else to occupy himself with right away, he hovers by the door, out of sight of the living room. He’s a bit curious to hear how Marinette’s doing this morning. She’d mentioned getting in a fight with a friend, but he hasn’t had an opportunity to ask if the situation has been fixed already.

Nothing has occurred in the class group chat, to Adrien’s knowledge. Alya and Marinette are getting along. Nino and Marinette were friendly to each other yesterday. And Adrien, to the best of his knowledge, has not been shouted at by Marinette.

It has to be a friend that Adrien doesn’t know. Still, he doesn’t want Marinette to have to deal with this, on top of everything else.

Alya’s voice makes a reappearance as the door to Marinette’s room opens at the top of the stairs. “--Gonna go get coffee,” Alya is saying, “and _you’re_ going to tell me what’s wrong.”

Alya’s already on top of things, it seems.

Marinette groans. “I don’t wanna talk about it,” she whines, though her footsteps follow Alya anyway--the complaining is just for show. “It’s really not anything important--”

“Hmm, a likely story.” 

A coat rustles. A squeak of shoes on the hardwood punctuates the gap in conversation, most likely Marinette shoving her feet into some rain boots. 

“...Okay,” Alya relents, perhaps in response to a look Marinette gives her. “We don’t have to talk about it _much._ At least let your brain turn off for a couple hours!”

“I don’t know,” Marinette hedges. “I have a lot to catch up on.”

“We all do!” Alya says. Adrien peers around the corner of the door frame in time to see Alya wave a hand dismissively, her smile saying that she already knows she’s going to win this argument. Alya shoves a purse into Marinette’s hands, not giving Marinette the chance to refuse.

Marinette looks less drained than yesterday, at least. A night’s sleep has done her good, and the bags under her eyes don’t look so life-threatening this morning. She’s wearing a new dress, a black one that barely peeks out under her long red raincoat, which her boots match. 

_Cute,_ says a part of Adrien that has refused to get a grip on itself for the past two years.

“Brain, off,” Alya commands, poking a finger into Marinette’s forehead.

“Okay,” Marinette says, caving. She slumps a little, and jabs Alya back. “You too, then.”

“You got it!” Alya beams. Adrien realizes, belatedly, that this effort is just as much for Alya as it is for Marinette. 

Adrien ducks back out of sight, and listens to the two of them cheerfully head for the stairs. 

“Bye, Adrien!” Alya shouts at him.

“Bye!” Adrien calls back. “Have fun!”

Adrien only lasts about half an hour in solitude before he starts feeling claustrophobic and lonely. These are not a good combination for him, so he ends up doing something out of character--he acts on a whim.

This whim leads to him slipping out the back door of the bakery and riding his bike all the way to the fencing academy. On the way, he almost hits a parked car because he’s texting with one hand while steering wobbly handlebars with the other.

It’s last-minute notice, but Kagami shows up within fifteen minutes anyway, her prompt response speaking to her own emotional state. She enters the courtyard and spots him immediately--they’re the only ones there right now, because the Saturday morning classes are already over and even the stragglers have left by now. 

“I’m not supposed to be here,” Kagami says, but she still drops her bag to the floor and takes her street shoes off as she says it. Her outfit is almost athleisure, like she’d had to calculate a balance between pretending to wear casual clothes while secretly planning to exercise. 

“Are you going to be in trouble?” Adrien asks.

Kagami shrugs, and crouches to rifle through her fencing bag. “Only if they find out. Though, I don’t know if there’s anything they can do to punish me, anyway.” She locates her shoes and pulls them out of the bag, then fixes Adrien with a look. “Don’t worry. They’re only concerned about their image, getting caught up in all this. Personally, I doubt anyone besides them cares.”

“If you’re sure…” Adrien says hesitantly, though her casual tone certainly implies that she’s not putting herself in harm’s way.

“I’m sure.” Kagami points across the courtyard. “Grab us some foils. I need to fill my water bottle.”

It’s been almost a month since Adrien has fenced. The break isn’t long enough that Adrien is rusty, or at all shitty at fencing, but Kagami quickly pulls out two victories in a row, looking pleased with herself. Because there’s nobody else around, she’s being more flamboyant than normal with her movements, and her smile is more devious.

“Is that really your best?” she asks, taunting.

“I’m warming up,” Adrien defends, and then jabs forward without announcing the beginning of a new bout. She counters, and pushes him backward, and their bout leaves the mat. The two of them migrate around the courtyard, ignoring all important laws of the sport, and only stop fifteen minutes later when Adrien’s heel hits a step and he almost wipes out before Kagami grabs the end of his sleeve and yanks him back to his feet.

They stare at each other for a moment, both out of breath, and then Kagami’s face splits into a rare smile. “Feeling better?” she asks.

Adrien nods, and regains his balance. With the back of his free hand, he wipes sweat off of his forehead. “Thanks. How about you?”

“I missed sparring with you,” she says plainly. She steps up one of the stone stairs, and hops up onto the bannister and rests an elbow on the newel as she finds a comfortable sitting position. “Plus, everyone else here is being so weird. Yesica keeps crying because she has a picture of you in her locker and it reminds her of your noble struggle.”

Adrien wrinkles his nose. “Really?”

“Don’t let her catch you here,” Kagami says, ominous. She uses the hem of her tank top to wipe at the sweat on her face, but she doesn’t seem as out of breath as Adrien is. 

Adrien wavers for a moment before giving into the urge to sit down. He settles on the fourth step, letting his legs stretch out in front of him, and he turns his face up to the sun.

Kagami nudges him with her foot. “You ate, right?”

Adrien nods, and closes his eyes. “You?”

Kagami says, “Yup.”

Silence reigns again. Adrien is close to falling asleep in the sunlight when Kagami pokes him in the ribs with her foil and says, “Let’s go again.”

Adrien peels himself off the stairs and picks up his foil again. While Kagami slides down from the bannister, finding sure footing on the stairs, Adrien _whaps_ her in the ribs with his foil and snickers at the outraged look she gives him.

“You’re dead, Agreste,” she says.

“Try it!” Adrien dares her, though he’s already skittering backwards as she charges at him.

The noise of their foils clacking together fills the courtyard again. Adrien is lighter on his feet, and Kagami has to work a little harder for her wins this time, but neither of them are taking it too seriously. When Adrien finally manages to actually win, much, much later, Kagami’s face is still warm with the traces of her earlier smile.

“I can’t stay much longer,” Kagami says (reluctantly?), angling her gaze towards the big clock on the wall. 

Adrien nods. “I should get back soon too,” he says, lowering his foil. He has much, much more homework to finish, and he should do that before it’s time to help with dinner. “Thanks for meeting me.”

“You don’t have to thank me for hanging out with you,” she tells him, rolling her eyes. “We’re friends.”

“Okay,” Adrien says, and doesn’t even try to tamp down on the wide smile that forces its way onto his face at her statement. 

Affectionately, Kagami pokes him in the chest with her foil, then she holds out her hand to take his. He hands it over, and she retreats across the courtyard to put the equipment away while Adrien goes and grabs their bags from where they’re sitting by the opposite wall.

As he goes, his brain sticks on a particular thought. Over and over, it reminds him, _you trust Kagami_. 

So, not one to ignore the thoughts that repeatedly cycle through his head, Adrien hands Kagami’s bag to her and says, “I want to tell you something.”

Kagami slings her bag over her shoulder, and raises her eyebrows expectantly.

“I’m kind of asking for advice, but mostly just need to tell someone?” Adrien says.

“Okay?” she asks, borderline nervous.

“Um,” Adrien says. He wavers, then dives into the deep end. “So, my dad’s Hawkmoth.”

Kagami blinks. She lowers her phone, abandoning the text she’d been crafting to her driver to get a ride home. 

“Are you joking?” Kagami asks, neutral.

Adrien shakes his head. He has no idea what to do with his face. Should he look apologetic? Scared? Hysterical? He’s feeling all three of those, right now.

“Okay,” Kagami says. She doesn’t question him, or even try to laugh it off. “Am I the only one who knows?”

Adrien bobs his head yes.

Kagami lets out a long, long breath. She pushes her bangs off of her forehead, likely to cool herself down, and leaves her hand resting on top of her head as she silently processes this. 

“Alright,” she says, after an extended moment. “How long have you known?”

“Since he got arrested?” Adrien says, his voice thinning as anxiety catches back up to him.

“That’s a...that’s a while,” she says. Her cheeks, previously not too flushed from exercise, are getting pinker as she wades through this revelation. “This is a lot.”

“I don’t know what to do about it.”

Kagami glances around, though they’re still the only people in the entire courtyard, and she lowers her voice. “I’m gonna tell you what you’ll do. You’re going to tell an adult, or Ladybug or Chat Noir. And if this doesn’t hit the news by Monday night, _I’m_ gonna tell someone.”

“Kagami,” Adrien protests, fear spiking at the idea of pulling _her_ into this mess too.

“Tough,” Kagami says, and moves her hand away from her hair and her bangs flop back down. Her fingers twitch in the air, but then she gives into her instinct to put both her hands on Adrien’s shoulders and pin him down with her gaze. “I’m here for you. But this isn’t something you can just keep a secret.”

“Okay.” Adrien feels a little better, once someone is telling him exactly what to do. All he has to figure out is how to convince Ladybug to trust him again, and then get through his father’s sentencing. Easy peasy. 

Kagami’s watch flashes with an incoming text, and her face twists--she clearly wants to stay and talk this through, but she’s already risked a lot of trouble by meeting with Adrien in the first place. “I have to go.”

“Yeah,” Adrien says. He hesitates, then steps forward and hugs her. “Sorry, I’m sweaty.”

“Me too,” Kagami says off-handedly, and Adrien feels her hands ball into the back of his shirt. Then she pulls away, and gives a bit of an awkward wave, and hurries across the courtyard and slips out the front door.

Adrien knows better than to follow immediately after her (her driver would spot him and definitely report to Kagami’s parents). So he decides to take the back exit of the academy, and he ventures into the air-conditioned hallways that offer some relief from the sun.

As he turns the last corner, bringing the exit into sight, his phone beeps with an incoming text. It’s from Tom, and it says, ‘Give me a call if you get this.’

_Shit._

It’s not the first text he’s been sent. His phone screen is filled with notifications of texts and missed calls, mostly from Tom and Sabine. He should’ve told them where he was going--it’s not nice of him to disappear while he’s in his current mental health situation. And Sabine has already said she wants to know where he’s headed if he goes somewhere by himself. (Adrien’s already dodged punishment for sneaking out once. He might not be as lucky, this time.)

Plagg and Nooroo are in his fencing bag, so Adrien isn’t alone, but his panic narrows his entire world down into the four corners of his phone screen.

The longer he waits to call, the more angry they’ll be with him. 

( _They’re already mad, so what’s the point in trying to mitigate it,_ his brain argues.)

He ignores his brain and presses the little phone icon to call Tom.

Adrien doesn’t get any time to regret this decision; Tom picks up almost immediately, like he had been staring at his phone. This doesn’t make Adrien feel any less anxious.

“I’m sorry!” Adrien bursts out as soon as Tom picks up. He puts his back to the wall and slides down until he’s sitting, where he feels like a sufficiently small and safe target. “I’m sorry, I didn’t even think--I should’ve let you know I was gonna be gone this long, but you guys were busy and--”

“Adrien,” Tom says, cutting through his sentence easily. “Are you safe?”

“Yes,” Adrien answers, and then snaps his mouth shut against continuing his panicked rambling. 

“Okay,” Tom says, more slowly. He...doesn’t sound exactly mad? “Where are you?”

After a pause, Adrien infers that Tom has been waiting for an explanation, so Adrien ventures, “I’m. I met Kagami to fence for a while, because I’m out of practice.” It sounds stupid. That’s not a good excuse for disappearing for hours. “I’m really sorry.”

“You don’t need to be.” While Gabriel’s voice going soft and low is always a sign of danger, Tom’s comforting voice sounds something like this. “We just couldn’t find you, and you usually answer your phone. We got a little carried away with the texts.” Tom’s voice goes muffled, as if he’s talking to somebody in the room with him, and Adrien makes out, “It’s Adrien. He’s fine, love.”

Adrien, emboldened by this, asks, “You’re not mad?”

“No, of course not. We were just worried about you,” Tom says immediately, almost scandalized by the notion. “Next time, please let us know when you go on an outing?”

“Yeah,” Adrien says. His heart is beating a weird, unfamiliar rhythm in his chest. “I will.”

“Alright. Thanks for calling, son. Sorry again for freaking out on you...Uh. See you this evening,” Tom says.

“You too,” Adrien says. The call ends, and Adrien stares at the opposing wall in utter shock at how well that conversation went. 

_You’re always so overdramatic,_ says a familiar voice in his head, but it’s not nasty enough to break through the bubble of relief in his chest.

He struggles his way through parking his bike in the mudroom next to Marinette’s, and then immediately bumps into Sabine as she comes to investigate the utter racket he’s been making. 

Sabine reaches out and steadies both of them by holding onto Adrien’s forearms. Adrien freezes like a deer in headlights, hyper-aware of his disheveled, post-exercise look, but she just gives him a smile instead of commenting on his appearance or anything else. “Welcome home,” she says, like that’s a normal thing to say to a strange child who has all but broken into her normal home dynamic. “How are you?”

“Fine,” Adrien says earnestly. He searches her face for any kind of hidden anger, but confusingly finds nothing of the sort. “I’m sorry for disappearing. It won’t happen again.”

“You’re almost an adult,” she says, waving her hand dismissively. “We were just worried about you, sweetheart.” When this stuns him into silence, she gracefully continues the conversation by herself. “We’re about to sit down for dinner. Want to get changed and join us?”

Adrien nods, clinging to this piece of direction like a lifeline. Sabine pats his face, and then goes back down the hall towards the back room of the bakery.

“Would you call Marinete and ask if she’s eating with us?” Sabine calls over her shoulder, and after Adrien affirmative response, the door swings shut and Adrien’s on his own. 

Marinette answers his text with a FaceTime request as he’s trying to find a clean t-shirt. Not wanting to miss her call, he gives up on the shirt search and picks up his phone to greet her.

“You’re naked,” she states as soon as his video loads. She’s impressively blank-faced, for someone who would have passed out if he’d answered a video call shirtless two years ago.

“No I’m not,” Adrien says, and sticks his tongue out. “I’m supposed to ask if you’re eating with us?”

“I’m sleeping over at Alya’s,” Marinette says. “We’re going to dinner with her sister, so...no. Is that okay?” 

He nods, confused as to why it’s his business to decide where she eats dinner, and Marinette gets kind of unsure of herself too. “I wanted you to know in case...in case you wondered where I was? I don’t know, sorry. Text me if you need something, though!”

Adrien has no idea what to say. So he settles on, “Thank you.”

“Yeah,” Marinette says. She pauses, then, seemingly desperate to move on, asks, “Are you going to eat dinner with my parents naked, or...?”

“Okay, thanks for calling, goodbye,” Adrien says, and puts his phone down to finish tracking down a shirt. He hears her laugh, and then he hears the quiet beep of the call ending.

It’s Adrien’s first evening at the Dupain-Cheng house without Marinette present. Once they sit down for dinner, Adrien understands why Marinette had been uncertain about letting him do this on his own. Conversation with Sabine and Tom isn’t awkward, and he’s never had the vibe like they’re uncomfortable to have him around, but it’s definitely odd. 

He’s getting better. Both at talking with them, and with eating in front of them. In regards to the latter, he clears his plate feeling no more anxious than he normally is. Heartened by how well the former is going, he takes advantage of Marinette’s absence, and brings up the subject of his uncertain future.

“I was thinking,” Adrien starts, his voice not as wobbly as it might’ve been last week, “about what’s going to happen after the case is over. To me.” 

At Sabine and Tom’s concerned looks, he amends, “Sorry, that sounded...ominous. I meant, where I’m going to live. You have shown me a lot of hospitality, and generosity and, and kindness by letting me stay here, but I know it wasn’t ever going to be a permanent arrangement and I was wondering if you could help me start looking for an apartment.” 

He can’t even fathom going back to live at his dad’s house. Even if his dad wouldn’t be there, Nathalie would be. The bars over his windows would be, too.

“If I win, I’ll be legally emancipated,” Adrien continues, now dropping his gaze to the salad bowl instead of making eye contact, “and I won’t have somewhere to go afterwards.”

He stops talking, there. Sensing that he’s said his piece, the two adults finally respond.

“You know that you’re always welcome here,” Tom says. He sets his fork down. “You always have somewhere to come.”

“Yes. We’ve never discussed this with you because we don’t want you to have more on your plate than you have to,” Sabine adds, “but of course we’re okay with this being a long-term arrangement. Even if you decide to find somewhere else to live while starting university, you’re welcome to stay here until then.”

Sabine and Tom are unbelievably kind people. But Adrien’s not starting university for another year (if he passes the bac at all). There’s no way they’re still going to like him by then. His eyes dart from Sabine’s, to Tom’s, then firmly fix themselves on the tablecloth. 

“That’s a very generous offer,” Adrien says, a lump rising in his throat. “I don’t want to keep imposing on your family, though.”

“You’re the opposite of an imposition, kid,” Tom contradicts. 

That’s not _true._ Adrien mopes around and sneaks out at night and cries all the goddamn time. He rarely finishes his food and he’s forcing everyone in his life to take time to sit through thirty hours of a court case that doesn’t directly affect them.

Maybe Adrien’s disagreement shines through his silence, because Sabine tries a different tactic. 

“Here’s our deal,” she says. “You help with some chores and you help in the bakery, like Marinette, and you pay some rent _only_ if the court awards you all of what they promised, and you can stay here as long as you need.”

This is something Adrien can latch onto. He lifts his chin, to gauge if she’s being sincere.

Her smile is small, but genuine. Tom hasn’t objected to Sabine’s proposal, so Adrien can only blindly trust that he’s alright with this too.

“Okay,” Adrien says. “Yes. I--thank you, yes. You won’t regret it.”

“Oh, honey,” Sabine says, already looking sad again, “I know we won’t.”

Saturday nights are nights when Adrien and Ladybug meet up. They don’t usually patrol much on Saturdays, preferring to just destress if they’re had a long week. A couple years ago, these meetups were often the closest thing Adrien had to hanging out with a friend that week. Even now, when that’s not the case, Adrien looks forward to these nights.

When Adrien reaches the top of the building where he always meets Ladybug, though, she’s not there. He waits an hour, then another, shivering a little in the breeze, sitting on the roof and wishing he at least had her phone number. 

It’s two in the morning before he gives up and retreats back to the guest room at the Dupain-Chengs’, ignoring the stress-migraine he’s begun to work himself into.

“Maybe she just fell asleep,” Plagg attempts, as Adrien changes into pajamas. Nooroo, from where he’s been cocooning himself in a discarded sweater, nods and does his very best to appear supportive.

“Yeah, maybe,” Adrien says, and tries to believe it.


	4. Chapter 4

Despite the late night he’d had, Adrien wakes up with the sun. He tosses and turns for upwards of two hours before giving up and stalking into the shower. If he’s not going to _feel_ great today, he might as well _look_ up to par.

It’s around eight when he emerges from his too-hot shower, skin pink and hair dripping onto his shoulders. Echoing up through the house are the sounds of Sabine and Tom beginning morning prep for the bakery. Adrien can’t even pretend that he’s alone, because Plagg and Nooroo are already hovering around his shoulders as he digs through his duffel bag for any clothes he hasn’t worn already.

Nothing will fit him right. He goes through three different sweaters until he gets too agitated to continue and starts pressing his fingers into the faded bruises on his sides, staring at the bag of clothes and kind of wanting to just climb back in bed.

“Kid,” Plagg says. It’s the first word spoken in the room this morning, but it doesn’t startle Adrien much. Plagg’s nervous, that much he can tell. Nooroo is hanging back, unsure how to handle a panicky Adrien. “Your turtle friend left his sweatshirt here on Friday.”

Adrien lets out a breath. He lessens the pressure on his bruised ribs, letting himself breathe easier. “Thanks.”

“Sure.” Plagg doesn’t move away. His eyes don’t leave Adrien until Adrien stands and goes to the living room to hunt the sweatshirt down, which is probably when Plagg becomes more certain that Adrien will keep breathing without his watchful eye.

Nino’s sweatshirt is folded and set on the back of the couch. It’s black and has a large abstract design of a ladybug shell across the back--it’s an early attempt at Ladyblog merch that Alya and Marinette had tried out last year. It might count as limited edition, at this point in time.

They’ll all be limited edition, once Adrien tells everyone Hawkmoth’s done.

Adrien carefully unfolds the sweatshirt and pulls it over his head, instantly feeling better once the sweatshirt is on him. It’s Sunday and he’s allowed to wear a sweatshirt outside. Nobody will get mad at him.

He stands there for too long, hands bunched in the front of the sweatshirt and trying to decide whether to keep it on or not. At his dad’s house, this would be unacceptable. Even when Adrien was under the weather, or taking a break from work, or physically unable to bear looking at the shape of his torso in a mirror, Adrien couldn’t take two steps in loungewear without hearing a derisive comment about his appearance. 

All clothing is a statement. The court is on the cusp of deciding whether Adrien is lying or not, and Adrien can’t start slacking off now.

But nobody at this house has ever acted like they were worried about Adrien’s outfit choices. Marinette smiles at him when he borrows something of hers, or Sabine compliments him when he comes home with the remnants of Chloé’s makeup practice still on his face, but nobody has ever told him to go back to his room to try again. More importantly, Nino’s sweatshirt is soft, and having the hood over Adrien’s head makes him feel safe. 

“You have today free, right?” Nooroo asks.

Adrien buries his nose into the collar of the hoodie, and mumbles, “Alya invited me to brunch later, but I don’t know if I’m going.”

The ideal scenario for this morning is a quiet, sleepy breakfast in the living room with his friends, where he can nap on someone’s shoulder and wake up in the afternoon feeling more like a person, where nobody will take a picture and comment about whatever he chooses to eat. Actually, he could go without the food altogether and just fall asleep on _anybody_ right now. He realizes, after spending too long thinking, that he just really wants a hug and he doesn’t know how to ask for it.

Nooroo glances at Plagg before continuing. The brief eye contact the two kwamis share hints at the possibility that the two of them have agreed to discuss this, and it instantly puts Adrien back on edge.

“We were talking,” Nooroo says, slowly, “and I think it’s important for you to go see what Nathalie’s planning.”

Adrien recoils. “Why?”

Nooroo remains undeterred. “She has the peacock Miraculous. It’s odd that her attacks would stop without your father around.”

“We thought maybe she was waiting for you,” Plagg says. “Because your dickhead dad might’ve told her that you were going to take over the Hawkmoth business.” He side-eyes Nooroo, then says, in a seeming divergence from the script, “I don’t want you to go back to that house. But if you can, Nooroo thinks it’d help us figure out what’s going on.”

“Kagami said I should tell Ladybug,” Adrien states.

Nooroo nods, encouraging, but doesn’t abandon his stance. “Yes. But if Ladybug shows up, Nathalie will know you’re there to take her down. It’ll be easier if you pretend you’re on her side.”

Adrien has been avoiding thinking about Nathalie as much as possible. She hasn’t been charged as an accomplice or anything, and Adrien has no intention of pressing the issue, but no status update on her condition has made news lately. Nathalie might be relieved to have a chance to escape from being implicated as a terrorist. Or she might be stewing in rage, waiting to take it out on Adrien and/or Paris as soon as he shows up at home.

“I don’t want to be alone,” is what Adrien ends up saying.

He’s not sure what context he’s referring to. The plaintive tone of his voice certainly makes Plagg and Nooroo look horribly depressed.

“You’re not alone,” Nooroo says. “We’ll both be there with you.”

“If Nathalie tries anything, I’ll go get Ladybug,” Plagg promises. “You’ll still have a kwami with you. And I know where Tikki is.”

“But, then Ladybug will know who I am,” Adrien refutes.

“I’ll figure it out,” Plagg dismisses. “Let’s get this show on the road so you’re not late to brunch.”

He puts his tiny paws on Adrien’s forehead and lightly bonks his own face into Adrien’s. The rare gesture lets Adrien know that Plagg is worried as fuck about this situation, and Adrien’s stomach tightens in response to this realization.

Before the three of them can storm the castle, Adrien has a five-minute long argument with himself about changing clothes again. (He ultimately decides not to.) As he finishes lacing up his shoes, he remembers his promise to tell Tom and Sabine where he’s going when he leaves the house, so he steels himself and goes down the stairs with a sinking feeling in his stomach.

Tom spots him first, and offers him a smile. There’s flour streaked across his face. “Morning, son. How are you?”

“Good,” Adrien says, so nervous he forgets his manners. He clutches his phone tight with both hands so that he won’t fidget. “I’m. I’m going to pick up some more things from my house.”

Tom’s smile wavers. Sabine, previously wrestling with the cash register, looks up sharply. 

“Would you like one of us to go with you?” she asks, concern turned up to eleven.

Adrien shakes his head. “Alexei’s taking me,” he lies, out of nowhere. The Gorilla has offered to drive Adrien anywhere he needs, but Adrien doesn’t think that’s such a good idea right now. It’s entirely possible that the Gorilla would think this was a really bad idea. Plus, he’s looking for new jobs right now, because Adrien destroyed his last one.

The lie appeases some of Sabine’s worries (Adrien’s stomach still rolls with guilt), and she nods and goes back to prying the cash drawer open with a spatula. 

“Alright,” Tom says. It’s remarkable how much Tom respects Adrien’s boundaries, even though Adrien is being shifty as hell right now (this fact only makes Adrien feel worse). “Call if you need us.”

“I will,” Adrien lies again. His mouth tastes like acid. Before he can vomit the truth and perhaps some stomach acid onto their shoes, he walks out the front door.

“Nathalie.” Adrien presses himself further into the back wall of the bakery, so he won’t be seen out of any windows as he has his furtive phone conversation.

“Adrien,” she greets, cordial. “So good to hear from you.”

“When I spoke with Father, he said you had a code for a painting. Can you meet me at the house in fifteen minutes?”

Nathalie breathes out, slow and tired. “Yes, I suppose I can.”

Adrien hails a taxi, trying to appear calm and collected whilst sitting in the back. The driver recognizes him, and makes two attempts at conversation before he realizes that Adrien really doesn’t want to talk about the week he’s had, and then the two of them politely ignore each other for the rest of the ride. 

When Adrien steps out of the taxi in front of his home, the gate is closed and none of the sprinklers, fountains, or lights are operating. The house sits empty and cold, and Adrien expects to feel sad looking at it. 

He feels nothing at all, just the stuttery beat of his heart. 

The company of Nooroo and Plagg, both secure in his pocket, may be the only thing that gets him to walk towards the house. If things go badly in there, for some reason, he has two Miraculouses on him and he can do what it takes. Adrien doubts Nathalie is going to attack him point-blank, because her style is more ignore-Adrien-getting-beat-up-and-hope-it-ends-soon, but it doesn’t hurt to have options.

Adrien presses the button on the panel on the side of the gate, and the camera activates, and he says, tonelessly, “Hi, it’s Adrien.”

“That was fast,” Nathalie’s dry voice responds, and the gate clanks as it unlocks.

Down the sidewalk, someone makes a noise of recognition, and Adrien ducks through the gate and clangs it closed behind him before they can ask for his autograph. 

Adrien begins the walk down the driveway, keeping his posture straight and his chin tipped up in case Nathalie’s watching from the window--in case any other passers-by see him, too. 

From his pocket, Nooroo says, “Plagg, remember to stay quiet.”

“You don’t have to remind me!” Plagg snipes. “How about _you_ stay quiet?”

“I need to make Nathalie believe Adrien’s the next Hawkmoth, so we can get out as fast as possible,” Nooroo says, unimpressed, and a brief scuffle between him and Plagg breaks out, calmed only when Adrien gives his pocket a light pat to remind them to shut the hell up.

The doors aren’t as big as he remembers, but the wide swing of the one on the right is still ominous. It swooshes open, and Adrien feels dry air-conditioned air hit his face, and he sees Nathalie standing there waiting for him. 

She looks almost sickly, though her dress and hair are just as pristine as they always are. Her skin is pale and she seems more tired than usual, but it might just be the horrible, terrible, no-good very-bad week she’s had taking its toll on her.

“Good to see you,” Nathalie says, inclining her head to him. Her voice doesn’t have quite the same detached quality as Adrien remembers.

“You too,” Adrien says. He glances around the entry hall, sees nobody else here. The house is silent save for them, no longer a bustling hub of people, staff, and board members. “How are things?”

The door wooshes shut behind him. 

“Let’s skip those pleasantries for now,” Nathalie says, which is more of a relief to Adrien than she could ever know. “Would you like me to show you to your father’s study?”

Adrien nods, and he follows her when she turns and goes. Her gait is controlled, and she doesn’t wobble in her heels or anything, but something feels wrong. She moves purposefully, stiffly, mechanically, and Adrien’s skin begins to crawl.

He’s walked this way, trailing behind Nathalie, many, many times. He could walk blindfolded from the front door to his father’s office just by following the measured click click of Nathalie’s heels.

As she holds the office door open and he passes her, his eyes catch on a brooch on her blouse. It’s a collection of bright blue feathers, fanned out like a peacock’s, and Adrien’s breath catches. But he keeps moving, intentionally keeping his feet moving normally, glancing around his father’s study like he hasn’t seen anything at all. Nathalie has the Peacock Miraculous on her, and that means she could transform at any moment, but she doesn’t have a reason to attack him yet. 

(He hopes.)

“I was surprised, when you didn’t charge me as an accomplice,” Nathalie muses. She lets the door fall back closed, and walks around Gabriel’s bare desk towards the portrait of Adrien’s mother. “You had every reason to do so.”

“You were just doing your job,” Adrien says. He watches, fascinated, as Nathalie’s fingers find specific places in the painting and press inwards, producing a loud _click_ that sounds like a door being unlocked. “I didn’t see why it was necessary.”

“Hm. Well, if it wasn’t _necessary,_ of course you wouldn’t.”

She doesn’t explain this weirdly pointed comment, just reaches over and swings the painting away to reveal a dark corridor that splits between a staircase up and a staircase down. 

“What’s in there?” Adrien asks.

“You came here to see,” Nathalie says. “Why don’t you go look?”

“After you,” Adrien says, because he’s more than a little apprehensive of Nathalie shutting the door behind him and letting him rot in there.

Nathalie looks bored, but she nods and says, “Of course,” and begins clicking her way up the stairs on the left. Adrien, after breathing his nervousness into submission, follows suit.

The narrow stairwell opens up into a large room, domed like an observatory. The wallpaper ripples and moves, and it takes a moment for his eyes to adjust enough for him to realize that it isn’t wallpaper, it’s _moths._

His skin crawls, looking at all the softly-fluttering pairs of wings. They coat the walls and ceiling like a shag carpet, deadening most of the echo of Nathalie’s voice. Each and every one of these was meant to hurt someone. All of them could have been used to manipulate someone into mass destruction. (Any of them could have been the akuma to permanently injure Ladybug.)

“So, how does it work?” Adrien ventures.

Nooroo zips out of his pocket, then, giving Nathalie a cordial nod in greeting. Nathalie doesn’t look surprised to see him. “When you activate your transformation, you’ll be able to search for people in the city who are vulnerable to being akumatized. Then, you will send the moth to that person, and open a telepathic connection.”

“You’ll need to detransform after the akumatization ends,” Nathalie adds. “You can do more than one at a time, but you need to plan the timing well if you do so.”

The subtle whispering of moth wings is making a shiver run up Adrien’s spine. He’s eager to get out of this room, away from the soft swipes of moth wings as one or two swoop past him now and then. Despite the fact that Nathalie’s looking at him expectantly, as if she expects him to go ahead and try some light terrorism right this second, he can’t even pretend he wants to do so.

“Interesting,” is all Adrien says. “What’s downstairs?”

With nothing more than a hum, Nathalie goes back to the staircase and begins to make her way down. Adrien’s used to her being annoyed, tired, fed up with him, but he can’t shake the feeling that she’s up to something.

Still, despite the fact that she’s clearly at the end of her rope, she stops before they reach the bottom of the second staircase. Warm light is starting to become visible, and Adrien can see the beginnings of another cavernous room, but Nathalie warns him before they get into this room, “This isn’t going to be anything that you expected. But if you want to continue your father’s work, it’s something you need to see.”

Adrien _doesn’t_ want to continue his father’s work. He nods, though, and Nathalie resumes walking.

The staircase opens up into a huge room, bigger than the one before. Wide windows occupy the far wall, letting light stream down over some sort of capsule at the end farthest from the stairs. It’s long, and rectangular, and the sunlight from the windows bounces off of the glass on top and obstructs any view of what’s inside.

Adrien’s stomach clenches. He doesn't know what he’s scared of, but something feels wrong.

“What is this?” he asks, in a voice that’s smaller than the one he’d used before.

It looks, almost, like…

“What do you think it is?” Nathalie says, almost melancholy.

Adrien follows her further into the room, only stopping when the light is at a different-enough angle that he can see inside. He sees _human hands,_ laid over each other. His eyes move upwards until he sees a chin, a familiar nose, carefully styled blonde hair.

It’s a _coffin._

Adrien steps back, breath catching. His heel hits the bottom stair, but some miracle of the universe keeps him on his feet anyway. Nooroo’s there on his shoulder, not saying anything, and Plagg’s still in his pocket, and neither of them are much of an immediate comfort.

“Your father was working to save her,” Nathalie explains. She keeps walking towards the coffin, her hands behind her back. “I hope that you understand how hard you’ve made it for him to do so.”

Adrien’s feet have rooted into the ground. He wants to move forward, to run towards the coffin. He wants to run backwards, away from this house, and never come back. 

Plagg leaves his pocket, taking advantage of Nathalie turning her back. He whispers, “I’m getting Ladybug,” and is gone before Adrien can beg him to stay behind.

Only Nooroo remains with him now. Adrien’s brain, hardwired to resort to paranoia in this home, pings _what if Nooroo’s working against you_ , but Adrien can’t act on this suspicion. He just has to trust that Nooroo is good, and that Plagg is coming back.

Adrien takes a deep breath, trying to get his bearings. He asks, a long period of silence later, “Is she alive?”

“She’s asleep. Nothing can wake her up, except the Miraculouses. If you combine Chat Noir and Ladybug’s, in addition to the Hawkmoth one, you get one wish.”

Adrien should keep his back to the exit, with Nathalie in sight. But when he finally wrenches himself into motion, he’s moving towards the coffin, not stopping until his hand is on the glass. His mom looks the same as the last time he saw her. She’s serene, and _not_ dead, and--his father has been keeping her body in a room in the secret basement of their house.

He’s not breathing correctly. His original coping tactic, avoidance, isn’t an option anymore. Emilie Agreste is _here_ and because Adrien has all but locked his dad in prison himself, she won’t ever be okay again unless Adrien does something.

“Adrien,” Nooroo says in his ear several moments later, an attempt to pull him back to reality.

“He was,” Adrien says, the beginning of a sentence that he can’t get out the first time. “He was, was just going to _leave_ her down here? Until when? Until--?”

“Adrien,” Nooroo says again, more insistently. “Remember why we came.”

“His plan to capture Chat Noir and Ladybug would have come to fruition eventually,” Nathalie says, “if you hadn’t stopped him.”

“Stop,” Adrien says, his voice lifting up into a higher register. He can’t pull his eyes away from his mom’s face. “I didn’t know! I didn’t know he was--”

“You have a responsibility to save her,” Nathalie says. Her voice has sharpened to a needle’s point, not yet leaving professionalism behind but definitely creeping towards annoyance. Adrien could write a biography of Nathalie based only on the way her voice shifts with her mood, and he knows he only has a few more questions’ worth of grace before Nathalie loses her patience.

It would be kind of a shitty book, really. It wouldn’t be helpful to anyone but Adrien, ten years ago.

“I know,” Adrien says. His fingernails press back into the scabs on his palms from earlier this week, and he pulls himself back to earth. “I know.” 

Nathalie’s mounting anger halts, pausing in an air of desperation. She just watches him.

“I know, okay?” Adrien says, still clenching his fists. “Just, give me a second.”

She’s had hundreds of hours to understand that Adrien needs time to process. Years of pressure to make perfect decisions have left him terrified to take any decisive action.

This time, though, he knows what his answer is already. The situation will change very rapidly once Nathalie knows what he’s chosen, and Adrien doesn’t know what to do.

When he thinks about asking Nooroo what his next move should be, he looks over to his shoulder and finds that Nooroo is gone. Adrien blanches, and his eyes sweep the room frantically until he sees the kwami hovering over Nathalie’s shoulder, clearly about to try to snatch the Peacock Miraculous.

The situation becomes clear. Nooroo came only because he wanted to save the Peacock kwami. Nooroo has just now decided that Adrien is too fragile to pull this off, and Nooroo is taking matters into his own hands.

“You know what the right decision is,” Nathalie says. 

Adrien can only watch in betrayed horror as Nooroo chooses that moment to strike. He darts down, wraps his arms around the Miraculous, tugs. 

The brooch doesn’t budge. Nathalie swats at Nooroo, yelping in surprise, and before Nooroo can recover from the blow, she grabs him out of the air.

“Shit,” Nooroo says, none too quietly.

“Don’t touch him,” Adrien says, and surges towards her, but stops when Nathalie gives Adrien a look of bewilderment.

“You’re turning this down?” she asks, lost.

With a sharp bite to one of her knuckles, Nooroo wiggles out of Nathalie’s grip and darts to Adrien, taking Adrien by the ear and yanking. “We’re getting out of here, chenille.”

Adrien stares at Nathalie, and at the welling drops of blood on her hand where Nooroo had bitten her, and takes two halting steps backwards, beginning the journey to the exit.

“Stay _right there,_ ” Nathalie says, losing her cool, and when Adrien continues to back away from her, she says, “Spread my feathers.”

The phrase is completely new to him. Adrien’s about to dismiss it as some weird old-person turn of phrase before Nathalie’s Miraculous activates and her transformation begins. Right. That’s the activation.

His feet are so heavy, clunky. He’s only wearing a pair of worn sneakers, but his feet are encased in lead, making his steps shuffling and too-slow to make any kind of proper escape.

“ _Chenille_ ,” Nooroo says, and tugs on Adrien’s ear again. “Come on.”

Adrien glances back at his mom. There’s no way he can get her out of here, like this.

“Come _on,_ ” Nooroo insists, and Adrien finally breaks into a run towards the exit.

Nathalie leaps over his head, gliding to a stop in front of the exit, a fan shielding half of her face. She glares as she flicks her wrist, producing a glowing feather that she holds poised between two fingers. It doesn’t particularly threatening--Adrien is more worried about the sharp edge of her fan--but Adrien knows that the intended destination for the feather is somewhere in Adrien’s sternum. 

“This isn’t a responsibility that you can just say no to,” she tells him.

Adrien’s eyes dart around the room, desperate for another exit, but there doesn’t appear to be any readily available besides the massive windows he could smash through. “I didn’t say I’m not going to do it.”

“You’re running.”

“I need time to think,” Adrien says. He eyes the feather in her hand. 

Nathalie flattens the fan, holding it so it more resembles something she could stab Adrien with. “You only came here for my miraculous. Why don’t you just give me the Hawkmoth miraculous, and leave the fate of your mother with someone who actually loved her?”

 _I did love her,_ Adrien wants to scream, but Nathalie takes this opportunity to flick her wrist and send the glowing feather plunging into his chest. Instantly, his sweatshirt begins to glow a faint purple Nathalie’s voice fills every corner of his mind, and booms, _“You want your mother back.”_

“Stop it,” Adrien pleads, and claps his hands over his ears. “I said I’d think about it!”

_“You can get the Miraculous from Ladybug. She loves you. Getting Chat Noir’s after that will be a breeze.”_

He hasn’t talked with Ladybug since they argued last week. He knows it would be easy to play on that, to harp on her guilt, to get in close and snatch her earrings and run. It would be even easier as a Sentimonster, with Ladybug fighting alone.

_“I can see that you want your old life back. You want things to be simpler. Remember how well you all got along before Emilie went away? Remember how your father used to love you--?”_

“ _Stop it!_ ” Adrien yells. He doesn’t know how long Mayura’s power holds. His resolve isn’t crumbling, but it’s warping instead, and he can feel himself start to waver the longer it goes. Unlike how Hawkmoth’s power is a cold _coup d’état_ of the brain, Mayura’s power seeps in like warm molasses, soaking into Adrien’s every thought and sweetening it to her liking. 

“Please, just give me time to think about it,” he tries, even though he knows Nathalie doesn’t give a shit how he feels. He forces his feet into motion. His skull, now weighing a thousand pounds, aches with every step, but Adrien forces himself to attempt some evasive maneuvers. He runs one way, doubles back, tries to twirl around Nathalie, but she’s very effectively shielding the exit.

_“You know I’m right. Come on, Adrien.”_

Adrien drops into a defensive stance, considering the possible outcomes of charging directly at her. She doesn’t have any weapons besides her fan. Until she takes over his mind completely, her power won’t do anything to hurt anyone but him.

_“Think of it as the last good thing you could do for your father.”_

Adrien charges at her. She anticipates this, and dodges his tackle. With a push between his shoulderblades, she sends him careening towards the floor as his momentum becomes too much for his feet to keep up with.

_“I know you want to prove to him you’re not a useless--”_

He slams into the ground chin-first, reopening his scab from Friday morning.

_“--disgraceful--”_

Gathering his adrenaline into something useful, he pulls his knees under him to try and stagger upright.

_“--traitorous--”_

Something hits the back of his head, hard, and Adrien sees stars. Mayura’s-- _Nathalie’s_ \--words in his head go out of focus, as if he’s been submerged in water, and then they disappear completely. Echoing through his brain, a faint metallic noise skitters across the stone floor next to him.

His cheek makes contact with the floor again as his arms give out. Someone else says something--Nooroo, _probably?_ \--before Adrien comes back to himself, forcing his palms underneath his shoulders and pushing himself into a kneel again.

“--excellent,” says Nathalie’s voice, swimming into focus. It’s her real voice, not the creepy mind voice she’d been using. Her hand appears in the corner of Adrien’s view, and her manicured nails close around a brooch on the ground.

Adrien hadn’t noticed the brooch there before. Maybe that’s why he tripped, and why his palms are smarting, skinned. 

“Chenille,” says a voice, smaller than Nathalie’s, somehow still familiar. “Move.”

Adrien’s head throbs, a low bass thrum of his heartbeat overriding everything else he tries to focus on. He can’t recognize the voice for a few seconds, and by the time he finally catches on to _Nooroo--Mayura--Hawkmoth brooch,_ Nathalie has already pinned the Hawkmoth miraculous to the front of her costume, and has trapped Adrien with a heavy foot on his back. His arms, already too weak to really keep himself up on hands and knees, buckle again.

“Nobody’s coming looking for you anytime soon,” Nathalie says. Perhaps, if it were anyone else, it would have phrased as a question. But Nathalie knows Adrien and, more importantly, knows that Adrien is dumb as a bag of rocks.

Adrien wheezes. As he tries to dislodge Nathalie’s foot, she just presses down harder until he can’t breathe and he gives up entirely. 

“Thanks for giving this to someone who will actually use it,” Nathalie says. Her expression is the same brand of bland, bored businesslike that she always had while watching Adrien tremble his way through a meal on a bad day. He can only stare, and can only wonder if she never cared about him at all. 

Nooroo has swooped up out of Nathalie’s line of sight. His eyes are wide with terror, with the knowledge that Nathalie could force him to transform her at any moment. 

Adrien considers whether or not he could get himself free without his head injury making him throw up. He considers a maneuver in which he would kick his knee into the back of Nathalie’s kneecap, unbalancing her. He considers bursting into half-fake tears just to see if Nathalie has any scrap of empathy for him left in her heart.

He’s saved from choosing any of these options. From upstairs, he hears his name, called in an entirely new voice. It sounds like Marinette, from the direction of his father’s office.

“Here!” Adrien screams, before Nathalie can stomp his ribs. “Down here!”

He’s not sure what Marinette will be able to do for him. All he knows is that he doesn’t want to be alone right now.

“Adrien?” the voice calls again, now closer. It sounds too intense to be Marinette’s voice, now that he thinks about it-- _right,_ it must be Ladybug, because that’s who Plagg went to retrieve.

Adrien opens his mouth to shout again, but Nathalie leans into her foot and he can’t get enough air to do so--he just makes a little wheezy sound like a two hundred-year-old kazoo.

Footsteps slam on the staircase, a confirmation that Ladybug knows where he is.

“Nooroo,” says Nathalie, in a scary voice that Adrien can’t even begin to categorize, “tra--”

A blur of bright red knocks Nathalie clean off her feet, alleviating the pressure on Adrien’s back immediately. He hears rather than sees Ladybug tackle Nathalie all the way to the ground, resulting in the thud of elbows on stone and a pained grunt from both parties. 

Adrien rolls onto his back and lolls his head to the side to track the situation. Ladybug has Nathalie pinned to the ground with one forearm over Nathalie’s neck. Her other hand is held out to her side, clenched in a fist, and Adrien can only blindly trust that Ladybug has secured the Hawkmoth miraculous before Nathalie could use it.

“Adrien,” Ladybug says. She leans her arm deeper into Nathalie’s neck, a reaction to Nathalie attempting to wiggle free. “Are you hurt?”

Adrien lies prone. He’d already been mildly concussed before showing up at his house, and he remembers getting hit pretty hard on the back of the head. These two may be combining somehow, because it takes him a moment to understand the question and then a few more to respond with a slow shake of his head. 

Ladybug turns her head, squints at him in disbelief. 

Adrien stares back, dazed. He blinks, then remembers to say, “Get the Peacock miraculous. It’s the other brooch.”

Ladybug tosses the object in her clenched hand towards Adrien. It bounces on the stones, and clatters to a stop next to Adrien’s thigh. He considers it, forgetting to catch it, but then slowly moves his hand to close down on top of it. 

“This is on you for wearing two brooches at the same time,” Ladybug says to Nathalie, and rips the brooch out of her costume. Immediately, Nathalie’s transformation flickers and rolls away, and Ladybug tosses the Peacock miraculous at Adrien too. 

“I can’t...” Adrien mumbles, meaning to communicate that he’s not in a state to be protecting either of these magical objects with his life, but he doesn’t get to finish his thought.

Ladybug turns her head from glowering at Nathalie, and her gaze lands on Emilie.

“Adrien,” she says slowly, “what is that?”

“Please don’t look at it,” Adrien says. The blood between his ears pulses, rhythmically dampening his hearing in and out. His relief has caught up to him in a massive swell, and it’s making it hard for him to parse through the other emotions he’s feeling. His heart beats in his aching head, saying, _Ladybug’s here. You’re safe. Ladybug’s here. You’re safe._

“Is that a _coffin_?” Ladybug asks.

“We can talk about it later,” Adrien pleads. He pushes himself up into a sitting position, gasping as his ribs creak. Now that he’s not alone, he’ll be okay. 

Ladybug watches him a moment longer, looking him over critically, before she finally says in a gentler tone, “The police are almost here. Go upstairs and tell them where to come, alright?”

“Okay,” Adrien says. He pushes himself up to a crouch, one hand flat on the stone and the other one still clenched around the metal of the miraculouses.

“She’ll die,” croaks Nathalie around Ladybug’s arm on her neck.

Adrien swallows hard. His vision is a bit tilty, a bit wobbly in the middle. He pushes upwards anyway, and finds himself on his feet, tottering towards the stairs. 

“She’ll die, and it’ll be your fault,” says Nathalie, still raspy and wheezy. 

Adrien keeps walking. The brooches in his fist cut into his skin, producing heat that might be attributed to slowly-dripping blood. 

“Adrien, I’ll take care of this,” Ladybug promises. Her gentle tone from before has been replaced with something angry, bitter, sharp.

His mom is in the coffin behind him. She’s never going to wake up because Adrien won’t trust Nathalie. Nathalie and Gabriel were willing to kill Adrien to bring Emilie back to life, and they failed and Adrien failed them too. 

Adrien keeps walking. 

He gets himself up the stairs without falling over. A couple of steps make his brain hurt with the effort it takes to put his feet on them correctly, but he staggers through the office and into the entry hall all by himself. The walk is familiar, especially when he’s injured like this.

After a few minutes of stumbling, his hand hits the front door and pushes.

He’s greeted by sunlight, by strobing police lights, by two uniformed officers up in his face. Before he can make out their faces, familiar from years of vigilantism, he only sees the broad set of their shoulders. Adrien shies back, startled by their sudden appearance, and almost falls over before he steadies himself on the doorframe.

“Adrien?” asks one of the officers.

Adrien points a shaky hand in the direction of the open office door. “In there,” he croaks, and then his knees give out.

**GROUP: [ladyblog stan polycule]**

**Nino:** cc are we still on for brunch today? if not i’m going back to sleep w my alarm off

 **Alya:** I think we are????? Though Mari somehow disappeared from my home whilst I was slumbering.

 **Nino:** wtf marinette

 **Alya:** Adrien did she go back home?

 **Alya:** @Adrien I know you’re awake don’t ignore me mdr

 **Nino:** oh my god.. what if theyre…

 **Nino:** no...it couldn’t be...not before marriage...

 **Alya:** STOP IT NINO I’M SCREAMING

 **Alya:** (get it Mari)

An officer must be put in charge of setting Adrien down somewhere where he won’t be trampled, because he comes out of his haze of maybe-having-fainted and finds that he’s sitting on the bottom step of the staircase that leads up to his bedroom. His forehead rests against the bannister, and his arms lay haphazardly on his lap. 

Plagg may have reappeared at his side, but it’s impossible to tell without asking out loud. 

He’s woken up because someone is touching his knee. Blearily, Adrien lifts his head and finds Ladybug in front of him, kneeling on the tile, eyebrows scrunched in worry. When she sees that he’s awake, she takes hold of both of his forearms and looks him over briefly, checking for injuries. 

“Are you okay?” she asks.

Adrien’s tongue feels too big. “I’m...fine,” he manages.

Her hand lifts to cup his jaw, and she pushes it up so she can see his chin better, just like Sabine had last time. “You’re bleeding.”

 _Shit,_ did he get blood on Nino’s sweatshirt? 

“You have the miraculouses, right?” Ladybug asks.

The words diffuse into his brain, taking root agonizingly slowly. After a few seconds, Adrien nods and lifts his right hand, still clenched tight around the two brooches in question. He sees at the same time as Ladybug that his hand has been bleeding for a while now, sliced open on the sharp corners of the magical artifacts.

Carefully, she uncurls his fingers from the two miraculouses, revealing that the face of the Peacock miraculous is coated in a sheen of Adrien’s blood. With light fingers, she extracts the two brooches from his cut-up palm.

“It doesn’t hurt,” he assures her, because he doesn’t like the sad set to her mouth. He blinks, and then forcibly activates the muscles in his face, molding his facial expression into something wide-eyed and oblivious. “How did you know to come save me?”

Ladybug frowns, still preoccupied with examining his hand. “Chat Noir’s kwami told me to come here. He said you needed to show me something.” Her mouth twists, sympathetic, around her next words. “I’m guessing it was...whatever was downstairs.”

“Did you show the police the moth room?” Adrien asks.

Ladybug nods. “I’m. I had no idea your dad was…”

Adrien snorts, humorless. The concept of it seems so silly, now. Absurd, that his luck is this bad, though Plagg’s mentioned that being Chat Noir has always carried that sort of risk with it. “Sorry I didn’t tell you earlier.”

“It’s alright,” Ladybug assures him, too quickly. Now’s probably not the time that Adrien will find out whether or not she’s actually angry at him. “How are you feeling? Do you need me to help you get home?”

Nothing sounds nicer than that. Though she probably won’t stay with him and make sure he’s not lonely once they reach the bakery, the few minutes of company will do Adrien a world of good.

(The _bakery_ is home. This house, hollow save for his mom’s resting place in the hidden basement, is nothing but a shell.)

But Adrien, as he is wont to do, sabotages this chance at quality time, and drags himself up to his feet. “I actually have somewhere to be,” Adrien says, balancing on baby-deer legs. He gestures vaguely over his shoulder. “Sorry.”

“Adrien,” Ladybug starts, reaching out partway and then stopping her hand before it can make contact with his arm. As she slowly lowers her hand again, she asks, “Are you okay?”

“I guess so,” Adrien says. His eyes focus themselves on a mounted wall lamp behind Ladybug’s head, unable to tear themselves away. “I will be.”

“You don’t--” Ladybug takes in a short breath, and then huffs it out like she’s frustrated. “You don’t _have_ to be. Let me walk you home, at least.”  
“I’ll just call a cab,” Adrien says. He shouldn’t force anyone to deal with him right now (at least, not until he has to be around his friends for brunch). “Thank you for showing up to help.”

Ladybug frowns. “Yeah. Obviously.”

“Okay. I’ll see you later.” He’ll likely see her in court, when she has to testify against Gabriel and his Hawkmoth-related behaviors. He waves a halfhearted wave, and then begins his sluggish walk to the front door, sloppily side-stepping her on his way. 

“Adrien,” Ladybug says. 

Adrien halts. 

“How did Chat Noir know your dad was Hawkmoth?” Ladybug asks. 

“I dunno,” Adrien says, turning halfway around to attempt to meet her eye out of the corners of his own. “Are you still mad at him?”

Ladybug asks, baffled, “Does it matter to you?”

A dilemma has always existed here--Chat Noir hates Adrien, but Adrien has never been sure if Adrien should hate Chat Noir in return. Chat Noir is allowed to be petty and jealous and annoying, but Adrien is supposed to be cherubic, easygoing, compassionate. 

So Adrien takes a breath and says, honestly, “Yes.”

Ladybug considers his face, her eyes flickering between both of his. “Did you tell him about your dad?”

“I guess so,” avoids Adrien.

“You could’ve told me.”

She sounds like he’s let her down. As if Adrien, in all his failures, hasn’t even left _Ladybug_ unscathed by his wild rampage of secrecy--but _Ladybug was the only person he told,_ and she’d shoved him down when he did. It’s fucking _unfair_. 

“I _did_ tell you, remember?” Adrien snaps, possessed by a long-dormant flare of anger. “You yelled at me when I did.”

As soon as the angry words slip out, Adrien’s fingers cease their fidgeting by his sides. He feels his face drain of color, and his mind spins a little bit with panic as he attempts to come up with a cover for what he’s just admitted. 

It’s no use; he can’t pull his brain back on track. The rails have ended and Adrien has busted through the buffer stop, and the entire train is careening into a suburban neighborhood. Many, many near-slips have happened over the years, and by all accounts Adrien should be an expert at covering for his stupid brain. 

But now, he just stares in blank, fish-like gaping horror at Ladybug, whose face morphs from confusion, to shock, to a wavering expression that looks terrifyingly, to Adrien’s anxiety-ridden brain, like disappointment.

“I need to go,” Adrien says. His stomach roils, suddenly too-warm. He repeats, perhaps to remind his immobile feet, “I need to go.”

“Adrien,” Ladybug says, her voice filled with wonder and shock, “are you--?”

“Shh.” Adrien thinks maybe he wants to faint again. 

“Oh my god,” she says, loud. 

_“Shh,”_ Adrien says again.

Ladybug has taken to opening and closing her mouth in shock. Fine. It’s time to have this conversation--Adrien can’t run, because he’s fucked up and now he has to face that.

He looks over his shoulder, making sure nobody’s around to overhear, and then he reaches out and latches onto Ladybug’s arm and asks, “Are you done talking to the police?”

She nods, dumbfounded.

As much as Adrien wants to run away before she can decide whether or not she still likes him, they need to get away from everyone else before one of them starts shouting. 

He says, “We should talk in my room.”

Ladybug says, in a barely-there voice, “Uh, sure.”

_il y a 2 minutes: Officers say that former Agreste personal assistant has arrested on suspicion of domestic terrorism, accessory to assault_

_Il y a 25 minutes: BREAKING: Police respond to a reported altercation at the Agreste Estate involving Adrien Agreste and a member of staff_

Adrien shuts the door behind him, and turns to face Ladybug, already braced for her to be mad at him. He’s revealed his identity, and he’s refused to hand over the Hawkmoth Miraculous for too long, and he’s--

Ladybug tackles him in a hug so tight that Adrien staggers back and hits the door. One of her hands lifts to cup the back of his head, a soft buffer between his skull and the door. 

“I can’t believe it was _you_!” she says into his shoulder, holding on tighter than anyone’s hugged Adrien all week--a hotly contested record. “This whole time!”

Adrien recovers from his surprise to return the embrace. He’s missed Ladybug-hugs. 

“I never guessed. I never even suspected, until you were here, and.” Ladybug’s embrace is fierce, almost enough to make it hard for Adrien to breathe, but it feels familiar and safe--the only thing in this house that could make Adrien feel that way right now. Her voice colors with a bit more melancholy, and she loosens her hug after a few moments. While her arms are still around him, it’s a hug that betrays that she’s remembered he’s a bit fragile right now. “You’ve had such a week, huh?”

Adrien snorts. “I guess.”

“I’m glad it’s you,” she says.

The fact that she can say this after a week of Adrien stumbling his way through a week of court proceedings, and months of Chat Noir being nothing but a nuisance to her, and years of speculation as to each others’ identities is a lot to take in. The words are spoken genuinely and without guile, leaving no room for Adrien to reason his way out of it.

Adrien’s breath hitches.

“I mean it.” Her voice is softer now. 

“Please don’t say that,” Adrien says. He wants to hide his face in the crook of her shoulder. He figures he has nothing to lose, so he turns his head until his field of vision turns into the feelings soft, warm, and dark. Despite everything else in his life turning topsy-turvy, Ladybug is still Ladybug, and her shoulder is still the sturdy one he remembers. 

“Why? It’s true.” Ladybug’s hand in his hair strokes softly down to the nape of his neck, and Adrien’s eyes begin to burn. Even though she _knows_ , and Hawkmoth is done, she’s not running away. 

(Yet.) 

“I’ve been so worried about you, both you _and_ Chat,” Ladybug murmurs. “But I guess I’ve been keeping an eye on both of you and that makes me feel better.”

“You’ve been keeping an eye on me?” Adrien asks. He doesn’t think _Adrien_ has seen Ladybug for a while before this.

“Oh.” Ladybug releases her grip, and takes a step back, giving Adrien more space so he can see her. “Yeah. I guess you don’t know who I am.”

“No, yeah,” he says, unsure whether to laugh or not, “that’s like, been my whole thing for a couple years now.”

He knows that keeping her identity secret is important to her. But now, he’s lost his only incognito persona, his only chance to escape, and their interactions are going to be forever different because Ladybug knows he’s _Adrien Agreste_ , not just some random asshole who helps her out with akuma attacks sometimes.

Ladybug bites her lip, still not taking the leap. She’s thinking very hard. “Plagg,” she eventually says, “what do you think?”

Plagg emerges from Adrien’s pocket, looking very pleased to have been summoned. “Well, if you’re asking _me,_ I think you should do whatever you want. You’ve earned it! And Adrien’s been freaking out about not having you around after all this is over--”

 _“Plagg,_ ” Adrien hisses. He can feel his ears turning red. Is it really wrong of him to be concerned about losing one of his only real friends over this?

“Aw,” Ladybug says. He doesn’t look up, so he doesn’t know if this is an uncomfortable or endeared noise. Both?

“What? I’m just _saying,_ you’re kind of a wreck.”

“Thanks. Thank you.”

Plagg bares his teeth at Adrien. Adrien supposes he’s earned this, with the amount of stress he’s put Plagg through. “Sure thing, kid. Nooroo, what d’you think?”

Nooroo emerges in a less boisterous manner, and inclines his head to Ladybug before looking at Plagg with a bit of a nervous expression. “I don’t see why it’d be a bad idea. Though, I haven’t been kept up to date with all of this situation, not as much as you, Plagg.”

Duusu nods sagely. He looks too tired to say anything to explain his position, so Adrien takes the nod as all the answer he’ll give. 

Ladybug takes a deep breath. “Lemme think about it. First, though, let me say this. I’m really sorry that I didn’t believe you. And I yelled at you. That was mean of me.” 

“It’s fine,” Adrien assures her. “I was being a dipshit, anyway.”

“Yeah, you were.” Ladybug’s nose crinkles. She lightly lifts one foot and nudges her toes against one of his shins. “What the hell’s wrong with you, always talking so badly about yourself?”

“Part of my character,” Adrien says, and tries to wave it off. He’s finding it difficult to decide whether he’s supposed to be acting like Adrien or Chat Noir right now, particularly because he’s not sure what Ladybug expects from him (and neither of those people are really a hundred percent _Adrien_ , because both of them are a role he plays when he’s not alone). 

Grasping for a change of subject, he tests the water by asking, “Don’t I get to know who _you_ are?”

Ladybug doesn’t give the same annoyed look that she used to. This time, she instinctively shakes her head, but her tone is near-playful when she says, “No! You were the one who accidentally revealed _your_ identity, so I don’t see why _I_ have to.”

His stress level reduces itself a miniscule amount, enough that his lungs begin to work. “My lady,” Adrien pleads, and tries his best to use a wide-eyed begging look that _never_ works when he tries it in costume.

Ladybug’s face is suddenly red. She ducks away, avoiding his gaze, and mutters, “ _Give me a minute._ ”

Now this, at least, is familiar. Adrien lowers his head, looks at her through his eyelashes in a way that’s allegedly attractive to the people on Instagram. “Please?”

Ladybug still won’t meet his eye. She releases a sharp huff of breath, and cuts her indecisive gaze to Plagg and then Nooroo. Duusu has nestled himself into the collar of Adrien’s coat, breathing tiny sleepy breaths onto Adrien’s neck, and has therefore removed himself from the decision-making process.

“Go for it,” Plagg dares Ladybug. Nooroo nods along.

Ladybug’s smile is halfhearted, a bit apprehensive. 

“Please don’t be disappointed,” she says. 

Adrien frowns. 

He opens his mouth to say, _don’t be stupid, I would never be disappointed,_ but she says, too-loud, “Spots off,” and her transformation sloughs off of her before he can reassure her. She’s kind of like him in that regard--at a certain point, the band-aid just has to come off.

Her face now bare, she blinks at him, fear etched on her face.

_Marinette._

( _It should have been obvious, though. Perhaps it had been magic keeping the thought out of his mind until now, but the dots all connect at once. Marinette late for school like him, Marinette disappearing from group dates like him, Marinette running from commitment to commitment like they were a burden even though she had way more time than Adrien to keep them straight._

_But also Marinette stressed, Marinette secretive, Marinette growing into someone more and more confident over the past few years. Marinette, Ladybug.)_

She’s right--she _has_ been keeping an eye on Adrien. She’s been there, along with Nino and Alya, through _everything._ And especially since she stopped nose-diving into the pavement every time he looked at her, she’s stood by his side through every dumb little thing he puts himself through.

The back of Adrien’s throat itches with tears unshed. He can’t speak through the sensation, but he can smile and he can stare at her through suddenly-watery eyes.

He recognizes the shy slant to her shoulders. She tilts forward just a little bit, bowing to the uncomfortable air as she creates it for herself. Her kwami, Tikki, zips around her head in a loop and then smiles reassurance at Adrien.

“I’m glad you’re safe,” Tikki says.

“Thanks,” says Adrien, the word garbled beyond comprehension as his resolve breaks halfway through the word.

Marinette lifts her chin at the sound. Her eyes are full of tears, too, and she barks a laugh of recognition at the look on Adrien’s face. The sound breaks the spell of silence, and Adrien lurches forward and grabs onto her to hug her again, and Marinette meets him halfway with enough force to knock the air out of both their lungs.

“Let’s give them space,” Adrien hears Tikki say in a stage-whisper to her fellow kwami, and while Plagg grumbles about this, the rest of them sequester themselves in the far corner of the room, settling into a cuddle puddle near the bookshelves.

“I can’t believe you,” Marinette hiccups, words that are pretty hard to understand because she’s buried her face in his shoulder. Her arms have wrapped around his midsection like a zip tie, nigh unbreakable. “You made yourself go through all of this by yourself.”

“You helped me a lot,” Adrien says. He shuts his eyes, and tears spill over his face onto the top of Marinette’s head. “You’re a great hero.”

“Shut up,” Marinette grumbles, and her shoulders shake with a cry-laugh. “This is so bizarre. I guess I sh-should say sorry for not saying anything wh-when you told me you had a crush on...Ladybug.”

Adrien says, “Same to you about Adrien.”

“Oh my _god,_ I was so EMBARRASSING,” Marinette snorts, and starts coughing when the action makes her choke. Adrien holds onto her while she hacks her way through a laughing fit. Eventually, it subsides, and she pulls back from Adrien to look up at her with a blotchy face and a wobbly smile.

“Let’s sit down,” she suggests feebly.

The two of them reluctantly separate to take the few steps over to the couch, where Marinette sits down and then yanks at Adrien’s wrist until he falls half-into her lap. She laughs shakily as he re-situates himself more comfortably; his legs draped over her lap and his head resting on her shoulder. 

“How’s your head?” Marinette asks, after the two of them have had a few quiet minutes to decompress.

Adrien assesses his answer carefully. He could try to lie, but he doesn’t see the point of doing that anymore. It’s _Marinette._ “Hurts. I was already concussed, so I should go to the doctor again.”

“Hm. Yeah. Hopefully you won’t have to get concussions anymore,” Marinette lightly bonks the side of her forehead into Adrien’s, hardly an impact at all and more just a reassuring reminder that she’s listening. “Can I ask...about the basement?”

Adrien winces. 

“You don’t have to say anything. But if you tell me now, I won’t have to ask later.”

Adrien looks down at his lap, where Marinette has taken one of his hands (the non-bloody one) in hers. “But when my mom disappeared, I guess it was because she was in a coma. It’s magical, somehow, so maybe it was because of the miraculouses. I only just found out, five minutes before you showed up. And my dad was just keeping her down there, I guess. He told me when he got arrested that I had to take over being Hawkmoth, so I could save her.”

“That’s…” Marinette frowns. 

“Right?” Adrien says. He flexes his free hand, attempting to judge how much he’s bleeding. Most of the cuts have begun to scab, but his palm is a mess and will be for a while. “I don’t know what to do,” Adrien admits, and tries to fend off more tears by wiping his face repeatedly with the end of the sweatshirt sleeve. “I wanna save her, but I’d need the Hawkmoth miraculous, mine, and yours to do it, and that’s not...I shouldn’t do that.”

Marinette mirrors the same action on her own face. Despite the time they’ve had to cool down, both of them are too overwhelmed to calm down all the way. She considers his words for a few moments, and then just says, “We’ll figure it out together. I told the police to leave her where she is, and we can send Duusu to ask Master Fu what we should do. I promise we’ll figure this out.”

Though perhaps Adrien could have summoned up a similar plan if given enough time to stop panicking, he’s glad Ladybug--Marinette is here to do it instead.

“Right,” he says. She turns her head and kisses his forehead. Adrien shuts his eyes in contentment, briefly considering taking a nap right there before he’s reminded of something.

“We’re late for brunch,” Adrien says. As un-thrilled as he is about going to this event, he knows Marinette would be upset to miss it.

Marinette checks her watch, and her eyebrows shoot up. “Shit, I promised I wouldn’t be!” She wiggles out from underneath Adrien, springs to her feet and then reaches down to pull Adrien up with her. “You wanna transform? We can get over there five times faster; I can carry you if you get dizzy.”

Adrien smiles in the ugly, genuine way that makes his nose crinkle up. “I’d love that, my lady.”

“You can’t--” Marinette punches his arm, her voice dropping into a mutter. “Don’t _call_ me that when you look like this.”

“Why, does it bother you?” Adrien presses, delighted.

Marinette points a threatening finger in his face, but summons no words to defend herself. She lets a frustrated noise escape her, and then she grabs onto Adrien’s wrist and pulls him away from the sofa to give them space to transform.

The kwamis dart over in a swarm when they see the two of them up and moving. Most of them have expressions of concern, and the other, Tikki, just looks mildly irritated by the fact that Plagg is hanging off her like a barnacle.

“Adrien shouldn’t jump on roofs when he has a head injury,” Nooroo says.

“He has a head injury?” Plagg asks, alarmed. It seems nobody has updated him on what happened while he was tracking down Ladybug. Perhaps this is for the best, because Plagg freaks out even more than Ladybug when Adrien is injured.

Tikki elbows him, and says, _“Keep up_.” 

Duusu says, voice tired but still affectionately mean, “ _Yeah,_ stupid,” and Plagg bares his fangs at him.

“It’s okay, Plagg,” Adrien tries, but Plagg just turns his glare on him. He doesn’t like to be left out of the loop; Adrien should know that by now.

Marinette laughs at them, effectively diffusing Plagg’s mounting irritation, then promises, “I’ll carry him. Tikki, are you up to transform again?”

“Of course, Marinette!” Tikki chirps, all-too-eager to get away from Plagg’s vibes. “But, are you sure you want to go out for food, Chat Noir?”

Adrien blinks, hard, taken off-guard by the question. “Um.”

“Oh, yeah,” Marinette says, her tone coloring with worry. “We don’t have to go. I could drop you off at home, if you need me to.”

He appreciates being afforded the option. And, even before he had to physically fight his father’s personal assistant over a disagreement regarding his comatose mother, he was exhausted. Now, knowing that Marinette will be even better at telling when Adrien’s faking feeling alright, the fight doesn’t seem worth it.

“Could you?” Adrien asks, crumbling.

Marinette’s shoulders relax, and he feels even more at peace with making that decision. “Of course. Would you be okay with me inviting Nino and Alya over while you nap?”

Adrien nods, his eyes heating up with more tears, and Plagg swoops over and bites him on the nose to snap him out of it. 

“We’re not crying again before we get home!” Plagg snaps, though he pats Adrien’s face affectionately while he scolds him. “Come on, tell me to transform you.”

Marinette squeezes his hand in reassurance. He squeezes back.

He trusts her. He hopes she can feel that he’s decided that.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thankx for reading kings.. my tumblr is @officialratprince . i love you sm


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